


Walk the Stony Road With Me

by Bingothefarmersdog



Series: Widomauk [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast’s backstory is its own warning, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub, F/M, Female-Centric, Genderfluid Character, Kink Negotiation, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mini-plot, Nonbinary Mollymauk Tealeaf, Polymorph Spell, Porn with Feelings, Possibly Triggering, Prostitution, Switch Caleb Widogast, They get resolved, Vaginal Sex, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:15:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bingothefarmersdog/pseuds/Bingothefarmersdog
Summary: Since discovering the magic of corsetry, Mollymauk and Caleb have been doing some exploring.Sometimes that doesn’t exactly go as planned...Sometimes the new plan is better.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Series: Widomauk [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635220
Comments: 9
Kudos: 154





	1. False Starts

**Author's Note:**

> I conceived this fic as an extension of _How You Dance the Line_ , briefly exploring more of Caleb and Molly’s dynamics and negotiations in a long-term committed relationship. Thus there will be a little plot, and I explore some issues and tension, but very briefly, and the story is resolved quickly. I will be referencing Caleb’s past, and so there may be some triggering content, but I will post warnings where applicable.
> 
> This is just a snapshot of how I think they would interact, and how they would navigate the kinds of disagreements that will happen in any relationship.
> 
> (Also sorry that the tense changes from _Dance the Line_ to _Walk the Stony Road_. Sometimes a writing style just Fits, and you can’t get it to sound any other way).

Mollymauk Tealeaf loved many things.

Friends for one. What a concept. What an unexpected blessing, to discover this band of bullshitters, all coping together. It was a gift because they were safe. Safe to be real with, safe to mess up in front of.

The Nein...Well honestly the Nein were Fuckups. And somehow he felt better about being a fuckup too. About letting his mask drop away, and his colors fade. Because deep down Molly’s extroversion, his outrageous behavior, was largely a lie he presented instead of the truth. Usually he even pretended to be proud of it, because after all: everyone lied about their shit anyway.

Having friends just meant that he’d found a select few people that didn’t buy into the magician’s tricks. These precious fools and failures, that knew his lies because they’d told them, knew his weaknesses because they were broken too, and somehow...by the Gods, somehow they put up with him anyways.

To put it with painful bluntness: the members of Mighty Nein were all damaged as fuck. And that meant they understood how and where people shattered. Even Jester, with her aggressive optimism and bright eyed exuberance. No... _especially_ Jester, with her fragile smile and carefully disguised insecurities...The sunny tiefling girl was playacting too, and both extroverts politely declined to call out the other.

They were all a little broken, in different places in different ways. And while every member had their own unique way of dealing with it, from Beauregard’s abrasive anger, to Nott’s protective mothering, and Molly’s own devil-may-care attitude; that thread of mutual understanding held true. It was the strangest kind of bond, but all the stronger for its oddity. The misfits and assholes, aggressively loyal to their own, clustered in a circle to defend each other’s backs because in this hostile world no one else would. For some reason the jagged edges where one person was broken only turned into snug cooperation, where another’s shattered edge would fit, forming a complete picture out of very imperfect puzzle pieces.

And Caleb?

Fuck, where to begin with Caleb...

On a lighter note, and in more recent news: Molly had discovered he fucking _loved_ corsets. And as he ran admiring eyes over his form in the mirror, it was with a surge of intense satisfaction. This would simply never get old.

The stays were only gently laced, just hugging his body without getting restrictive, or he wouldn’t have been able to get it on by himself. The first time Caleb dressed him up in one of these, the wizard had tightlaced Molly so snugly that his ribs ached in the most perfectly awful way, and the tiefling looked like a goddamn heroine from Jester’s smutty novels. It was perfect, and painful, and absolutely everything that made him horny.

But usually, he didn’t go so far, without Caleb’s help. And ye gods, was Caleb happy to help. That was also supremely satisfying: to know that Mollymauk wasn’t the only one to enjoy the process of getting squeezed, like an orange being juiced. They didn’t do it all the time, but the exceptions to the norm were exciting, and more than anything quite memorable.

Molly also didn’t often put on a corset alone. But sometimes, every now and then, when they’d just finished an exhilarating and climactic battle after weeks of prep and come out victorious, or spent an entire day hiking across country without sight nor sound of anything exciting to do, Molly indulged. When they were safely back in the Mansion (Caleb’s latest achievement and wildly popular gift to the group), after supper and stories...Well then, Molly would take a stroll through his dressing room—which was another lovely part of Caleb’s Mansion that the others _definitely_ didn’t know about—and would choose his mood for the evening.

This evening it was a sultry vision in dark cherry red silk, with even darker burgundy roses embroidered all over it. The exuberant tiefling had discovered it in the shop window of an establishment selling Women’s Unmentionables, and he’d immediately dragged the wizard over to memorize its appearance for recreation later. It was shorter than some of his collection, not dipping down as far below his stomach, and it also didn’t rise quite so high around his chest.

But pared with lacy white drawers and a linen chemise between the stays and his skin, it looked delightfully sinful. When the corset wasn’t laced so hellishly tight it was honestly more comforting than anything. Less arousing, and more satisfying. It felt a little bit like being held and protected, wrapped in a sturdy kind of armor.

Molly tilted his head critically on one side, and ran his hands over the fit, pulling in a deep breath just to feel the boning creak against the pressure. _Boning_. He snorted with appreciative sarcasm at the pun.

That was never going to happen though, if he stood peacocking all night.

Getting dressed up was just the first step of many wonderful steps, that Molly had been planning all day. So the tiefling snatched up a light robe to fling around his decorated body, bidding temporary farewell to the corseted vision, and firmly tied the sash around his waist. Without touching, and when the corset was as relaxed as he was wearing it, you couldn’t at first glance tell for certain that he was wearing it, and Molly sauntered innocently back out into the rest of his and Caleb’s shared rooms.

Shacking up together wasn’t exactly a new arrangement. Considering it had become a regular circumstance almost every time they’d rented tavern rooms, even before the mansion became a regular institution. Now Nott had her own set of chambers, which nobody but Caleb—and more rarely Yeza—had ever really gone into. Her private suite communicated with Caleb’s space, but both friends used a message spell to get permission before using it.

Which meant that Molly and Caleb’s shared space had not even the slightest hint of the goblin girl’s influence in it. At first it hadn’t even looked like Caleb himself lived there. It was so focused on Molly’s style, and Molly’s various requests for the rooms, that a stranger might have been forgiven if they mistakenly thought that Caleb didn’t own or enter the room at all. Then Mollymauk had absolutely put his foot down, and insisted that the wizard have at least something he liked to prove his existence, and share in Molly’s life.

Apparently Caleb’s solution had been additions, divided by strict segregations. So while nearly three quarters of the rooms still looked like Mollymauk had figuratively vomited all over them, or at least vividly dreamed them, there was still one simple wooden door in the room, which led to Caleb’s study. Even that was hidden behind a large and elaborate tapestry of magical invention that displayed the Moonweaver in embroidered pearl beads, until the fabric was looped up, and then Caleb’s hidden room was visible.

Like the wooden door, the wizard’s study was deceptively simple when Molly opened to door to look in. It took time, and a familiar understanding of Caleb to realize what made the room special. You had to know about the fire, that was always warm without being too hot. Had to notice the desk chair that never squeaked, or made any noise when it was dragged. Had to feel how the wooden floorboards were smooth under shuffling bare feet, the slide made cool and slick by constant wear and tear.

It was endearingly characteristic once you knew the truth. Caleb’s comfort revolved around a collection of pleasing sensations, not objects. He was a man obsessed with detail, and his private space was just as finely tuned, with attention given to every smallest sensation. In this one dream space, Caleb was privately fussy, and had removed every irritating sound or tactile stimulation that had ever grated on him. Everything from the sturdy weight of his chair, to the creamy smooth feel of the study’s parchment, and the low but not sagging hight of the ceiling.

Every time Mollymauk came into the study, it took him a moment to adjust. The contrast between their rainbow colored bedroom, and this cozy little whitewashed cubicle, was already a jarring change. But it was the very distinctiveness of Caleb’s choices, the very simplicity of his tastes, that made Mollymauk feel a little out of place, almost burdened with the guilt of being an intruder.

The wizard was hunched over his desk, coat half shrugged off and then abandoned, scratching away busily in one of his books. He looked completely absorbed, hovering so close over the paper that his tousled copper hair brushed the page, shoulders high and tight with the interest of his work. For a moment Molly just watched, charmed by the unconsciously captivating view.

For all his ostentation, perhaps even _because_ of it—and the darker waters beneath it—Mollymauk had always found an irresistible draw to the vulnerability of ignorance, when the subject of observation was unaware of being watched. The pure innocence of unknowing performers, caught in a brief window of honesty, when they thought no one was there to watch. The beauty of a farmer’s wife kneading her bread, a toddler getting their face wiped after eating, even the humor of a Crownsguard furtively picking his nose.

Molly didn’t have the patience to watch for long, but he did watch. And was endeared by the performance. Then he shook the curls out of his face, leaned against the doorjamb just so, and lounged like a very self-satisfied cat as he gave the doorpost a gentle tap.

He might as well have remained as he was however, because Caleb didn’t even flinch.

While he’d liked watching Caleb undisturbed, it was less pleasant to find him equally undisturbed when Molly wanted the wizard’s attention elsewhere. Molly frowned, imitating Jester’s habit of pouting childishly. Then he broke down in the attempt, completely ruining the show of petty discontent with a grin. It was just slightly ridiculous: modeling for an oblivious wizard, who was too deep in his studies to even remember that sex existed.

Molly detached himself from the doorjamb, sauntering across the room to stand directly behind the wizard’s chair, and he reached out to gently touch Caleb’s shoulder. At the first unexpected touch Caleb startled badly, flinching with high strung nerves that Mollymauk had never been able to soothe away, no matter what he tried. Then the familiarity of the caress worked its way through its unexpectedness, and the human allowed himself to be gently pulled away, until he was leaning back with his rumpled head pillowed on Molly’s stomach.

For a long moment Caleb stared up into Molly’s face absently, still more than half lost in his work. Then his brow knitted faintly, like he was actually seeing Molly’s face for the first time, and the wizard mumbled “ _hallo_...” like he wasn’t exactly sure what was supposed to be happening.

The tentative greeting made Molly grin, so protectively fond of the bumbling man in his grip. “Hello dearest.” He murmured back, smoothing the hair back from Caleb’s forehead. “You’ve been ignoring me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?” Caleb responded, still tentative as before.

“Mmm. Didn’t even notice when I knocked.”

“Oh.”

“What exactly is all this muddle anyway?” Molly inquired lightly.

“Ah. Well.“ Caleb started to respond, beginning to eagerly lean forward and reach for his notes to explain. But he got no farther than a short aborted movement, as he was immediately reigned back by Molly’s selfishly possessive fingers, and fell silent.

“Yes?” The tiefling prompted again.

“Well. A new. A new theory, I am. Working on for Nott.” He tried to struggle on again, this time distracted as one of Molly’s clever hands carded gracefully through his ruddy hair, and the other dropped to creep beneath the wizard’s loosened shirt collar, and rest over freckled collarbones.

“Important I suppose?” Molly said, smiling innocently as Caleb’s chest stuttered under his hand.

“ _Ja_. Important. It is an expanded idea for the polymorph spell.” The wizard began to explain with a passionate glint in his eye.

“Yes?” Molly continued graciously.

“I think it could be a big breakthrough, if I had...more...”

Caleb’s voice died, melting away as Molly smoothed his hand up the wizard’s throat, forcing his head to tilt back as the tiefling cupped beneath his chin. His eyes looked glassy in the following silence, words completely stolen, as he gazed up into Molly’s face looming over him. Beneath the hand possessively cradling Caleb’s windpipe, Molly felt the wizard’s adam’s apple bob, as he swallowed heavily.

“I think,” the tiefling purred, “you should pay attention to me instead.”

“This is important...” Caleb tried to protest vaguely.

“But I’m selfish,” Mollymauk asserted back with a wicked grin, “and I don’t think I care if it is.”

Releasing Caleb’s throat, the tiefling ripped apart the sash of his robe, carelessly shedding the garment. Then he circled around to the desk, hastily brushing aside scattered bits of parchment. After making a space, with careful gentleness that belied his cavalier tone, Mollymauk turned and perched himself in the empty gap.

And there, resting his feet on Caleb’s knees for support, the tiefling shamelessly spread his legs, thighs falling apart as he challenged Caleb with a mocking seductive look. The wizard wore that slightly glassy eyed and wordless expression again, in the face of this unexpected assault of seduction, blankly unable to take in the unblushing tiefling. Smug and self satisfied, Molly watched it all, glowing with triumph as he watched Caleb’s eyes skip over and then become fixated on the growing tent in Molly’s ruffled drawers.

“I got all dressed up for you.” He breathed in a sultry croon.

“ _Ja_...you did...” Caleb agreed needlessly, as if he wasn’t quite keeping track of what his tongue was doing.

“Don’t you like it?” The tiefling asked, eyes dancing even while he feigned innocence.

He allowed his feet on Caleb’s knees to slide up closer to the wizard’s hips, feeling him shudder pleasantly at the intrusion. Whatever that suggestive proximity was doing, it was also clearly stealing his tongue, and Molly allowed the question to pass away. After all, it was more than obvious that _yes_ , Caleb liked it. He was still dragging his eyes over every lanky inch of Mollymauk’s frame, less shrinking and more openly interested at every pass.

“Tell me you think I’m pretty.” Molly rumbled, voice going smoky as the toes of one food curled and nudged against Caleb’s hip where they were tucked.

“I think...” Caleb intoned, dragging the words out like they were syrup, and his hand wrapped hotly around the ankle of that same foot. “You are beautiful. Mollymauk.”

“Mm...Really?”

“Absolutely ravishing.”

“Yes?”

“Perfectly gorgeous.”

“Lovely complements,” Molly purred, eyes half lidded.

Then, “come here, darling,” and he abruptly hooked his leg over Caleb’s shoulder, forcing him to lean forward. Molly didn’t actually push very hard, and left Caleb plenty of room to move so he wasn’t crushed, but even the idea of force cut off the wizard’s breath short. After a brief lurch off balance, Caleb found equilibrium again, hunched under Molly’s leg close between the tiefling’s open thighs.

For a moment the careful stillness shimmered on the air, both not daring to move. Then Caleb broke the silence with a dark chuckle. Darting a hotblooded look up at Molly’s careful poker face, the wizard turned his cheek inwards toward the leg straddled across his shoulder, and laid a dainty kiss there that made Mollymauk grip the desk and bite his lip. Still smiling against Molly’s leg, Caleb carefully reached up to cup Molly’s hips, nuzzling another deeper kiss into the same place.

“ _Fuck_.” The tiefling bit out, sharp and husky, giving the edge of the desk another wrench.

Caleb just hummed, tucking his nose into the crux of Molly’s thigh. For several long moments that seemed to last years Caleb heartlessly refused to move on, apparently intent on kissing every centimeter of the same sensitive skin. The spreadeagled tiefling could do little more than put up with it, biting his lip and trying (mostly failing) to keep from flinching like a nervous colt every time Caleb touched him. By the end of a few agonizing caresses, Mollymauk had given up on the attempt at nonchalance, legs spread completely open, breath shallow and heated, hitching every time Caleb kissed him.

When Caleb finally chose a moment to tenderly kiss the tiefling’s tented groin, it was simultaneously the best and most unsatisfying feeling imaginable. Molly could feel the heat of Caleb’s breath, the soft pressure, and the scrape of stubble, all tantalizing and close. But it was also a reminder, bringing Molly’s mind back to the plan he’d been cherishing at the beginning of all this, the picture he’d started with.

And a lazy blowjob on Caleb’s desk, whimpering and ravished beneath skillful intent, wasn’t it. At least, not exactly.

“Sweetheart, I wanna try something fun.” He accordingly gasped out, getting a hand in Caleb’s hair, and trying to pull his head away.

He managed only a halfway success, because the wizard yielded to the entreaty, but only moved far enough back that he wasn’t directly touching, and the molten heat of his breath still washed over Molly’s sensitive crotch. It was driving the tiefling more than a little crazy.

“Yes?” Caleb asked, when no explanation was forthcoming, Molly being too busy trying not to throw a fit.

“Just a wee little idea, I’ve been thinking about,” the tiefling finally managed to enunciate, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge how much his voice was shaking. “Since I brought it up once, but we never got back to it, I thought I might dress up a little, to grease the works.”

“And very pretty you look, _liebchen_.” Just brushing his lips across Molly’s member again.

“Mmm.” Molly hummed, too busy trying not to combust with intense desire to come up with a response.

“So what was the idea?”

“I want—“ Molly began, then tangled on his own words, frazzled and distracted so that he had to begin again more firmly after recollecting himself. “I want you to pay me for sex.”

Just admitting the desire, letting it breathe in the open, made the tiefling’s abdomen suffuse with pleased warmth. Gods that felt so fucking _good_ to say.

Caleb gave a little breathy chuckle, and Molly could almost have called it contemptuous, if he didn’t already trust Caleb not to laugh at him. The wizard ducked his forehead to plant more tiny kisses along the inner meat of Molly’s thigh, but distracting as they were, Molly found himself frowning in spite of the pleasure, and exerted himself to stay alert.

“Darling?” He said, trying to probe for an explanation.

The wizard lifted his face at once, meeting the tiefling’s gaze with artless curiosity. Yet somehow, Molly still couldn’t shake the sour feeling plucking at the back of his mind. Caleb Widogast had an impeccable poker face, and indeed often flayed Molly alive with his mask of cool and unimpressed disinterest, while the tiefling could barely form words he was so lost in pleasure. But even in the midst of apparent indifference there was still a burning authority at the back of Caleb’s eyes that was very different from his show of candid interest now.

“I hope you don’t mind?” Mollymauk asked, not sure what he was even trying to say.

“You...” the wizard began to respond, then stopped, as if chewing on his words. Then he finally said in a low, desire filled growl, “you are worth all the gold in the world, Mollymauk Tealeaf.” And he mouthed over Molly’s crotch again.

That certainly _sounded_ genuine, and Molly decided to go with his instinct and give in. After all, Caleb’s eyes were burning with dark desire, his breath was hot and maddening through Molly’s drawers, and the molten seduction was too good to resist. The tiefling awkwardly slipped from his perch and dropped into Caleb’s lap, straddling the wizard’s hips.

No sooner was he close enough, then Caleb immediately claimed his mouth in a dominating kiss, and Molly yielded himself to the moment wholeheartedly. It was easy to get lost in, easy to get drunk on: kissing Caleb. The wizard was heavy handed in a mood like this one, always crushing, almost what Molly could call domineering. When his blood was boiling just right, Caleb liked to take what he wanted, no holds barred.

Their dance was a matter of sloppy hands and crushing mouths now. Caleb authoritatively gripped Molly’s hips like the tiefling was a doll Caleb wanted to break, and Molly was equally eager: less claiming, and more clutching. He wrapped his hands around Caleb’s shoulders like he wanted to melt and fuse with the wizard in front of him.

Undulating made their hips crush together, Molly grinding on Caleb shamelessly, and the pressing contact made the wizard loose control of the kiss with a shaken gasp. A pleased moan bubbled past Molly’s lips as his mouth was freed, and he repeated the gesture, fondling his hips against Caleb’s until they were too close for air, much less a blush between them. Feeling that proximity, and more than anything feeling that press and _grind_ , as only another man’s arousal could grind, freed Molly’s tongue just as much as his wordless pleasure was released by the loss of Caleb’s kiss, and the tiefling poured out words like a floodgate released.

“Fuck, you feel so good, darling.” Molly said, little more than a thready gasp, raking his fingers through Caleb’s hair. “Can’t wait for you to fuck me. You beautiful man. You’re gonna take me so fucking good, I know you will.”

Caleb keened through a half strangled moan against Molly’s neck, probably picturing it, and Molly laughed. Still rolling his hips, until his voice was shaken and throaty with the pleasure of their grinding, Mollymauk went right on talking, letting his tongue and its tide release with giddy enthusiasm.

“I want you to bend me over,” he said, explaining his fantasies glibly. “I want you to use me up. I’ll be your personal whore. You can take me like a bitch all night long, and I’ll let you fuck me till you’re tired of it.” He paused to half laugh at himself, and half sob with the petty frustration of a spoiled child, “gods, I’m so ready for you. I’ve been waiting all day...”

With a growl Caleb suddenly asserted autonomy again, rising from the sheltering crook of Molly’s shoulder to once more seize the tiefling’s mouth. Guided by a possessive hand on his jaw, and still half lost in the kiss, Molly slurred out his still unquenched words between gasps.

“I’ll be so good for you, darling. This is gonna be the best five gold you ever spent.”

That was the end of the magic.

Caleb choked like he’d swallowed his own tongue, and yanked sharply away from Molly’s lips as if they’d burned him. The contempt, or distress, or whatever it was, had resurfaced so strongly that this time Molly couldn’t possibly miss it. Caleb looked nakedly disgusted, his repulsion returned in a stronger and more obvious form.

“Sweetheart—“ Molly began, both startled and frightened by the frank _revulsion_ on Caleb’s face.

“I don’t—we can’t—continue Mollymauk,” Caleb said, stammering but curt, as he began to struggle out from beneath the tiefling’s weight. “I need to. I need to think. I am going to the bath.”

For a moment they were almost fighting, as Molly made an effort to keep his place, while Caleb tried to shake him off. It lasted only for that one moment, and in another moment Mollymauk had been politely yet firmly removed from Caleb’s lap. The man hastily scrambled for the door, and Molly felt his heart clog his throat as misgivings and self reproaches made his stomach turn sour.

“Wait—fuck—“ the tiefling swore, trying to think of anything to say. But all that met his lips was a pleading and desperate, “Caleb!”

But the appeal met deaf ears, and in another moment the wizard had ducked out of the room, leaving a frightened tiefling behind him.


	2. Frank Apologies

The familiar weight of another person’s warmth in the bed was missing from Mollymauk’s side next morning.

After Caleb’s disappearance the tiefling had fiercely stripped out of the feminine clothes that felt constrictive and stupid in the wake of their breach. Dressed in more subdued attire, he’d waited for as long as he could for Caleb to return, restless and guilty the whole long drag of time. But in the end, he must have fallen asleep, because he blinked awake to find himself looking up at the canopy of the bed he shared with Caleb.

One golden shaft of sunlight—magical sunlight of course—lanced across the room from a large window seat where the curtains weren’t fully drawn. It was an aperture Caleb had installed at Molly’s request, that looked out onto a magical re-creation of the terrain where the doorway to the mansion was. Sometimes this meant that all you could see was a clogged mass of imitation trees, pressing right up against the glass, but sometimes the land was clear and Molly could get a glimpse of the moon if it was visible over the horizon. 

Disappointment dropped heavy into his stomach, when he discovered that the pillow beside him was empty. Nor, from the untouched smoothness of the blankets, did it seem that it ever had been filled, and Molly wearily roused himself to go search out his partner. Needing space was one thing, but Caleb’s tendency to ostracize and isolate himself was quite another. Experience had taught the tiefling to wait no more than a few hours before at least trying to build a bridge. 

Their bathing room—a natural cavern copied from some hot-springs the Nein had visited—was empty. Ditto Molly’s dressing room, though he hadn’t really expected to find Caleb there. So he returned with a heavy heart to the setting of the previous evening’s unfortunate scene, gently knocking as he poked his head through the door. 

Everything looked almost exactly the same, as he glanced in. Caleb was sitting hunched over a scatter of papers, just as before, once more scratching away. But not so intent as before...or so happy, Molly realized, as the tiefling’s knock made him rouse and look round. He smiled invitingly, but the warmth only lighted his eyes distantly as if it was a guttering candle, and behind the smile was fatigue, where his eyes were shadowed and heavy.

“You didn’t stay up _all night_ , did you?” Molly asked with equal sympathy and concern.

Caleb frowned and stretched, eyes going unfocused as if he were only just now remembering the internal clock at the back of his mind. “I suppose I did,” he said idly after this self examination.

“Darling...”

“There is...much to do,” the wizard said, flapping a hand absently at the mess of papers before him. The gesture drained out of him, and the interest drained out of him too, as he muttered, “much to think about...” and fell silent as if he’d forgotten they were speaking together.

“You need to rest, dear...”

“ _Ja_. _Ja_...” Caleb agreed distantly, only roused for a moment, before he lapsed away into a daze again, staring through the papers in front of him.

Mollymauk regarded him, unnoticed himself, for a long minute, gauging the wizard’s posture. When he wasn’t busy with some object immediately in front of him, Caleb quickly lost energy and interest, falling into a kind of open eyed stupor that made Molly’s stomach curl with quiet dislike. For a long time Caleb just sat, doing nothing, and too obviously _thinking_ nothing, now that Molly wasn’t speaking to him. Then he gave a long slow sigh, heavy with fatigue, and numbly fell to work again, slumping over the papers in front of him.

“Caleb dearest?” Molly said, breaking the silence after a minute of this.

The wizard looked up with the same hollow smile and vague interest as before, a copied movement so exactly recreated that it was uncanny. Molly shivered, wondering as the hairs on the back of his neck rose, whether Caleb even remembered they had been speaking together less than a minute ago...or if he was under the faulty impression that this was the first time Molly had spoken.

“Can I come in?” Molly asked with outward unconcern, and inward morbid fascination with the thought.

Finally, this question drew something like a real emotion from Caleb. He frowned a little, disturbed because it was uncustomary for Molly to ask entrance, and they both knew it. Usually the brightly colored tiefling came and went as he pleased. This change seemed to disturb Caleb’s mind, and the same arrested interest was revealed in his answer, as he said with careful earnestness, “of course Mollymauk. You are always welcome in my space...”

The tiefling quietly stepped inside, gratified to see that Caleb was still watching him with something like alertness, if not more than a vague shadow of it. He crossed the room quietly, and touched Caleb’s shoulder, on the point of asking to sit down in Caleb’s lap. Then Caleb brought the hand up to kiss it, with another of those dim hazy smiles, and the tiefling threw ceremony out the window. He was tired of this dreamlike unconcern in Caleb, and determined to get a rise out of him, even if it had to be an angry one. So he unceremoniously sat, tacitly claiming Caleb’s whole attention.

It didn’t get the vitality or full interest that he wanted, but neither did Caleb fade out of himself. He smiled vaguely, and his head drooped in a sleepy way on Molly’s shoulder; but Molly felt slow retentive hands clasp around his waist too. That was better than nothing, he supposed.

“Sweetheart, exactly how long have you been sitting here?” He asked, smoothing the hair away from Caleb’s forehead so he could prop his cheek there.

“A few hours...” the wizard responded vaguely, adding after another tired sigh as if it were an afterthought that resolved itself in his mind just a step behind the rest. “Longer than I should...probably...”

“And why didn’t you come to bed last night?”

This grave inquiry received no response, but Molly could tell by the growing tension in Caleb’s shoulders that it wasn’t from a lack of attention. Quite the opposite, Caleb’s whole body language was more alert than Molly had yet seen him this morning.

“You’re obviously tired. So why stay up?”

Still no answer, and Mollymauk looked down to see Caleb’s brow had knitted a little. He looked less abstracted, and more distressed than before, his faintly lost look giving away to a troubled air and averted face. Several seconds still brought no answer, and when Molly looked down searchingly, the wizard turned his face deeper into Molly’s shoulder, as if aware of the tiefling’s scrutiny and uncomfortable with it.

“Were you upset about something?” Molly prompted, with as much gentleness as he could.

Of course the question was needless. Mollymauk well knew that Caleb had been upset. It was the gentle guidance forward, the invitation to go deeper by degrees, the offered opening that Caleb really needed. Being given a chance to qualify his thoughts, and a place to start from in articulating them, was something Molly had learned to be intentional about offering, because it took so much longer for the wizard to work himself up to the point of volunteering information without it. Uninvited self expression didn’t come naturally to the man.

Old, stale, half forgotten lessons made him secretive.

“Wouldn’t it be better to talk about it, dear?” Molly tried again, when Caleb was still silent. “Not let it eat you up inside?” with a saddened glance at Caleb’s mess of papers.

He got no obvious response, but the arms around his waist tightened a fraction, and Molly took it as silent agreement, and by extension a validation to keep pushing. So he settled himself more squarely on Caleb’s lap, and began constructing a new plan of attack. This blockage was more stubborn than usual. Obviously Molly had to find something that would get a reaction out of Caleb, but not startle him too badly. Petting Caleb’s bony shoulder, reedy and angular beneath his shirt, Molly considered several options before settling on one.

“Are you angry with me?”

“No!” Caleb protested with something like real indignation, then immediately subsided into a mumble. “No. Of course not, Molly...I could never be angry with you...”

“You’re sure?”

“Never...not for this...”

“But you are upset with me?”

After another protracted silence, Caleb mumbled, “I don’t want to talk about it...”

Molly frowned, unsure how to take the rebuttal. “In general? Or...just to me?” He asked, quaking inwardly with an odd sense of doubt about it. After all this time, it shouldn’t feel like Caleb might only be pretending to love him, just to make him happy but...

 _Fuck_ , if Molly didn’t half believe it sometimes.

“No, no.” The wizard reassured, so hastily that Molly began to breathe again. “Just...Not right now. I think.”

“Of course,” Molly did his best to chuckle, trying to laugh off the stubborn doubt still clinging to him. 

“I know that you would rather talk now...” Caleb hedged, self sacrificing even in things like this, that he was truly in earnest about.

“No, dear, I am quite capable of taking a hint,” the tiefling joked morbidly. “I’ll stop being obnoxious and get out of your business.”

He tried to drop a kiss on the top of Caleb’s head, but the wizard rebelled before he could, sitting up with an expression of deep concern on his face. It was Molly’s turn to avoid the look, even while he felt stupid for doing it. Who else deserved to know him, completely, in all his good and bad facets, if not Caleb?

Incredible, honest, _broken_ Caleb, limping along with his scars.

“I am not...pushing you away, Mollymauk.” The wizard said, as serious as if it were a vow. “When I am ready to talk, you will know first, and you will know everything.”

“I believe you,” Molly agreed with a reluctant smile. “And you’re truly not angry with me?”

This time Caleb didn’t answer as readily, and Molly filled his silence. “You _are_ angry.”

“No!” Caleb said with a hasty squeeze around Molly’s waist, then a less quick and more honest: “I don’t know...”

“You don’t have to hide it, if you are. Sometimes you drive me fucking insane, dearest.”

“With good reason,” Caleb qualified.

Always so ready to recognize his faults... 

“Emotions don’t actually work like that,” Molly laughed. “They’re never going to function based on reason.”

Caleb nodded, but the gesture was distant, attention occupied by inner thoughts. Finally he explained, with reluctant eyes on Molly’s shoulder, which the tiefling always recognized as a sign of the wizard’s careful honesty. “If I am angry...my reason knows better. I love you, and I trust you, and I know you would ask my pardon—“

“Which I do.” The tiefling interrupted.

“—and I am happy to give it...” Caleb went on, furtive eyes meeting Molly’s, before he retreated from the contact. “Even if I know it—is not...and never could be...needed.”

The shimmering spell of honesty faded, as Caleb’s voice fell silent, and he shifted restlessly in his seat as if he didn’t know what to do with himself after it. Heart full, and tongue heavy, Molly immediately decided that for him, clasping lavender arms around his shoulders, and kissing his hair. With a bowed head, Caleb yielded to the affection, and drooped on Molly’s shoulder again. For a long period of silence they remained still, comforted in each other, until Molly once more broke the relaxed stillness.

“Thank you.” He said, speaking with his cheek pillowed on Caleb’s head again. “That makes me feel better.”

The tighter squeeze of Caleb’s arms said what his mouth did not, and he seemed more than happy to linger indefinitely, scattered papers completely forgotten. It couldn’t last forever, and at last they separated; first because Caleb’s legs were falling asleep under Mollymauk’s weight, and then because a ghostly servant of the mansion appeared to summon them to breakfast. But some uncustomary tenderness remained. It came out in constant little touches or veiled looks, Molly subdued and less boisterous, Caleb so openly affectionate and touch starved that Jester pointed it out.

“It’s so cuuuute when you’re touchy Caleb,” she said, as their group was preparing to mount up for the day’s riding.

The wizard had been lingering to give Mollymauk enough goodby kisses to serve for a significantly longer separation than the distance of being on different horses. At Jester’s words he flushed, but he pretended not to notice as he darted off to mount his own horse. Finally ready, the group set off, riding at an easy pace.

“They’ve been fighting.” Caduceus commented discreetly, when Jester’s horse came close enough to speak in low voices together, half an hour later.

Seeing Jester look confused, the firbolg jerked his chin in the direction of Caleb and Molly, still riding as close together as they could. Then Jester’s eyebrows shot up, and she chirped “oh” as she caught the drift of the conversation.

“Yeah. Just a little tiff, I’d imagine,” Caduceus said. “Nothing too bad, they’re just uh—hugging it out, as you might say...”

Jester nodded, eyes dancing merrily.

“All I’m trying to say, is maybe you shouldn’t comment on it.” The firbolg tried to restrain, hoping she’d take his advice.

The mischief in her face wasn’t promising...

Thankfully Jester agreed at once. “I won’t say _anything_ ,” She purred with mock sobriety. Then giggled and added in her usual tone, “I just hope they have lots, and lots of make-up sex tonight.”

Caduceus frowned as she spurred her horse ahead.

Was that something couples did?


	3. Fragile Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning!
> 
> For: Discussions of Caleb’s past, including starvation, prostitution, dubious consent, and implied abuse from Trent. 
> 
> Let’s remember that ya boi is royally Fucked Up, and tread with caution accordingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in fucking _love_ with Ron Koza’s version of Caleb, especially how he draws Caleb’s hands. In my opinion, most people don’t draw Caleb skinny enough, and Koza really does. So when you read this chapter, picture that.

It took several days for Caleb to bring up the subject again. They were so busy on dynasty business: investigating rumors of another beacon, that turned out to be a false alarm—which in itself only provided more questions, because if there was a rumor, someone started it. There was hardly time to talk about anything. Let alone something as serious as their brief conflict, which Caleb had promised to explain.

Finally they caught a break, as the chain of questions brought the Nein (almost predictably) back to Rexxentrum. Being in a city for the first time in nearly a week meant shopping, and looking for magic items, and all the other shenanigans that tended to happen around their group. After that was discussions of beds, and arguments over the merits of the different taverns, which was quite superfluous because they would be staying in the mansion anyway.

They got the usual look: a mix of morbid curiosity, judgement, and distaste, as Fjord requested—and then confirmed—that their group of eight people would only need one room. Seeing how people reacted was always so delightful. Mollymauk wasn’t one to resent the impression they definitely left. People were allowed to think whatever they wanted, as far as he was concerned; it was interesting to see their party treated as, “that sort of group.”

Of course outsiders weren’t in the know, and didn’t see Caleb construct the magical doorway that lead to a significantly larger space than one rented room. After that was done, and the doorway shimmering in the air, it was only a few steps into magically conjured comfort and plenty. A meal was ready, and the fires lighted in every room, and more servants than one could possibly want to serve you hand and foot. 

Dinner was even more noisy and chaotic than usual, because the mansion’s kitchens happened to serve Jester’s favorite dessert. Under the influence of too much sugar, the lively young tiefling’s powers of invention led to her performing an impromptu skit with several roasted fowls, in which one—named Lady Featherstone—fell in love with Sir Turkey Gobble instead of Count Cluckle Quill and the offended gentleman gallantly skewered his rival with a carving knife. After this entertainment Nott challenged Beauregard to a pickle battle, and the two women armed themselves with specimens of that fermented vegetable and dueled, until Beau’s pickle snapped in half and she was forced to retire from the field with her disgraced weapon as sustenance for wounded pride. Nobody seemed too eager for bed, especially Mollymauk (who was cuddling Yasha as comfort after one of her characteristic absences), so it took several hours for the Nein to part for the night.

When they did it was with parting taunts and complements—and a brief pillow-fight which ended in Molly nailing Beau in the face with a perfect smack from a big white pillow—and finally peace reigned. Molly skipped off after his triumph, and quietly let himself into the room he shared with Caleb. The wizard was already there, since he hadn’t joined the pillow party, and Molly passed him to enter his own dressing room and strip.

“Well darling, score one for me.” The tiefling said lightly when he came back, completely nude and finger-combing his messy hair. “If I’d had bricks instead of feathers in that pillow, Beauregard would have had a bloody nose.”

“Mollymauk. Could you come sit down?” Caleb mumbled awkwardly, not responding to his partner’s banter.

Molly frowned, taking in the wizard’s hunched, avoidant posture. “Of course, sweetheart...” He softly approached the bed, and Caleb scooted to make room, the human already dressed down to shirt and breeches.

“How do you want to sit?” The tiefling asked, pausing at the edge of the bed, as his tail lashed.

“You hold me tonight.”

The tiefling crawled up to lounge against a pile of pillows at the headboard, and Caleb settled between his legs, the wizard’s back propped against Molly’s chest. It was a familiar setup, because Molly’s horns made it difficult to spoon any other way. Like two puzzle pieces fitting together, their bodies fell into place, each gesture or movement accommodating the other’s somewhere else. Molly hugged Caleb’s shoulders, and the human wormed his fingers under the living ring around his neck to acknowledge it, and somehow Molly’s legs ended up looped and straddled over Caleb’s. Then Molly propped his face on the wizard’s head, just breathing in his heat, and relaxed with a sigh. He was relieved to feel Caleb do the same.

Mollymauk’s attention drifted, floating from one thought to another in a peaceful daze. Idly his eyes were arrested by the half exposed scars on Caleb’s arms, and he thoughtfully examined them without any real intent. They always interested him, those scars...Partly because Caleb was so shy of them, and partly because if they appeared irritated it meant he was upset about something and scratching them. So someone might need to confront him about it. And partly just because they belonged to Caleb, and Mollymauk was endeared by things that belonged to Caleb.

They were extremely pale, and stood out because Caleb’s skin was dotted by so many freckles that the unmarked scar tissue was a contrast. Arranged in a neatly surgical pattern, there was a short slash at the top, two slightly longer underneath it, one long deep slash flanked by short ones on either side, and then two slightly longer and a final short slash at the bottom. Precise, vertical, perfectly centered, and mirrored on both forearms, so exactly alike that it was uncanny. Around each of the marks was a web of scaring, reminding the tiefling of branched lightning, and shiny like burns, the lacy pattern irritated pinkish instead of white.

Molly probably could have described them in his sleep, but that didn’t stop him from memorizing their appearance constantly.

“Mollymauk?” Caleb mumbled, drawing the tiefling out of this abstracted examination.

“Yes, dearest?”

“What you...asked me to do. The other day.” The wizard said, like the words were a test to sound the waters with.

“Yes, dearest...”

“I can’t...pay you...” the wizard said, voice sinking towards a reluctant whisper, so Molly had to strain to hear him. “For sex...”

“That, I rather inferred, sweetheart,” Molly said kindly, untangling an arm to grasp Caleb’s hand.

For several seconds the wizard distracted himself with their intertwined fingers: lithe and supple lavender, against his own long bony hands. His knotted fingers looked angular and fleshless, tendons standing out on the backs, compared with Molly’s slender turn of form, soft and loose with flexible grace. The contrast was already striking, even without Molly’s tattoo, and that added color only made the juxtaposition of pale freckled flesh and ostentatious lavender so much the stronger.

“I know that there are...women like Jester’s mother.” Caleb said, the words clumsy and halting. “She is...beautiful. And strong. And very talented. I know that...” The wizard brought Molly’s hand up to his mouth, dragging it across his lips, and mumbled, “but that is. Not what I feel.”

The wizard fell silent, continuing to drag his mouth in a tender pattern over the back of Molly’s hand, stubble rasping faintly. And the tiefling let him falter; let him pause, and hover, and consider his words. For once they had plenty of time. Molly could wait.

“I have...done many things I am not proud of, Mollymauk.” Caleb stated after the silence. “And...” for a moment longer he faltered, before finishing his thought. “ _That_ , is one of them...”

“‘That’ being specifically...?” Molly began to question.

Then he felt a tear strike his hand where Caleb was cradling it.

“Sweetheart!” The tiefling burst out with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Caleb made a strangled choking noise, and hunched forward, which made Molly immediately sit up to lean against his crouched back. “My boy...my sweet boy. Shush, darling...”

Caleb didn’t outright weep, but his breath was heavy with it, and he shivered with the effort to keep himself together. For a long time the conversation was abandoned, as Caleb fought with himself, and Molly held him faithfully, ready to support and comfort no matter which road the wizard chose. Finally he seemed to regain some measure of self possession, no longer trembling quite so much, and breathing more evenly, though the emotion was still visible near the surface.

“I think, I understand now. You don’t have to say any more.” Molly murmured kindly, when this juncture came.

“But I said you would know everything.” Caleb returned, voice determined.

Molly pressed a kiss to the bent curve of Caleb’s bony spine, “yes, you did...”

For a moment it seemed doubtful that Caleb would find the voice to speak at all, his breathing was so shaken and agitated. When he did, the words were forced out with careful enunciation. “Mollymauk, Tealeaf. I have slept with people for money.”

The tiefling didn’t answer, just hugged the wizard’s shoulders again.

“It wasn’t...It wasn’t what I know you would want to pretend. Not to me.” He went on in a mechanical voice, as if the first start had made the rest begin to fall into place, his narrative painfully straightforward. “I was...starving. And desperate. And ready to do anything for a scrap of food.”

Molly bit his lip to smother a sharp stab of bitter self reproach. Gods.

He was such a fucking idiot.

“I was...lost. Waking up after eleven _years_ of living in a dream.” The wizard shook his head ruefully. “Everything was so...So different. Some things were the same, but it felt like—it felt like everything I knew was changed. I had no family, no friends. I could barely remember how to talk.”

Impulse made Molly cradle the wizard closer, bringing the wizard’s hand up to his mouth and carefully kissing it, while two hot tears rolled down his cheeks. Because this...This _emptiness_...

This Molly knew all too well.

Heart-wrenching familiarity struck resonance out of every word, because this confused oppressive fog was bitterly scorched into his memory, and dogged everything he did. All the pretty lies Molly told about himself came back to this: challenging him with the truth that he’d rather live any deception, believe any bullshit, rather than see himself without smoke and mirrors. He’d rather pretend to be proud of being naked, than admit he had no clothes.

“This empire is cruel to beggars, Mollymauk.” Caleb said with a shudder, after Molly had kissed his hand and let it fall once more. “I was so _hungry_. And when I had nothing else...I used what I could. And got what I could earn out of it...”

Molly wished he could stop listening. Go away, or cover the wizard’s mouth, or anything to make his story come to an end. But it wasn’t the time. For whatever reason, Caleb had decided to make this his time to remember. And even though Molly wanted nothing more than to shut his ears and cover his eyes, his duty to Caleb was to listen, if that was what Caleb wanted.

“I was...very good at what I did...” Caleb confessed in a choked whisper.

Molly rehearsed the playful retort he would have given—and indeed had given—at other times. “ _I know you are, my darling. Speaking from personal experience, you’ve taught me quite thoroughly_.” What a callous recognition, and how humiliating to know that he’d ever spoken it.

“Trent taught us how to be charming, and I still remembered the lessons.” the wizard murmured, making Molly’s stomach turn. “And anyway...” he added with the first sign of true bitterness Molly had heard, “nobody cares what you look like, if you make yourself cheep.

It was revolting to hear Caleb say that. Revolting because of Trent, revolting because of what came after it, revolting just because Caleb had been in pain. It always sickened the tiefling, and in all probability, it always would. Part of Molly was glad it did.

“The first time I didn’t even get paid. I didn’t know what I was doing, and didn’t try to get the money till after. But by then he...no longer needed me...So he just kicked me in the stomach, and left before I could get my voice back.” Caleb said, and actually _smiled_ as he said it. That was haunting, because the broken twist was almost like humor.

As if it could ever be funny.

“Most of them weren’t bad though.” The wizard went on, tracing nonsense patterns on Molly’s arm, as if to keep himself detached and distracted. “I charged half up front, so I’d still get something no matter what, and that made it better. But most weren’t bad. Some even gave extra...Like I said—“ he smiled bitterly, “I was good at it.”

The same accusatory echo of reply breezed through Molly’s mind, and the same guilt followed after it.

“In the end I stopped,” Caleb said in culmination, finishing his painful little tale in the same hollow emotionless voice that he’d started it in. “Nott and I started traveling together. We were scratching out just enough to survive on, and it wasn’t needed anymore, so I gave it up.”

The wizard spoke no other reason for abandoning his pitiful little survival tactic than its being worthless. But Molly could guess it was deeper than that. It was easy to see that hidden revulsion had informed the decision.

Caleb must have hated every second of his ‘servitude.’

“So now you know. About what happened to me.” Caleb said, the words cold and truncated. “And...” for a moment his voice caught, and Molly guessed that unshed tears were probably the reason again. When he finally found his voice it was husky with them, “I really do not think it would be pleasant for me. To pay you for sex.”

“Of course—“ Molly began. Then his throat closed, and he couldn’t get any farther, without revealing the guilt he’d been swallowing back.

No wonder.

No _wonder_ Caleb ran. Unwitting and ignorant or not, Molly had been trifling with knives, playing with—and making a mockery of—real wounds Caleb was scarred from. And even if the intention had been innocent, that didn’t make the stupidity, the blind naïveté any less harmful.

No wonder Caleb had been disgusted.

“I’m sorry.” Molly choked.

Without saying a word Caleb lifted the lavender hand he still held between his own, pressing it against his lips again. It took no more than that...but needed no more than that...The unspoken forgiveness in the gesture was punishment enough. Molly sobbed.

Gods, he’d really fucked this up.

The colorful tiefling was a lover of words. He was endlessly chatty, and always had a ready comeback to insults of every kind. Having no words was an abyss that he refused to go back to, and yet always dreaded, no matter how much he tried to talk himself out of it.

That didn’t change the fact that Mollymauk Tealeaf was more honest in his silence.

And this was a _very_ honest silence. His vocal cords were too tangled to talk, muzzled by tears, and anyway...the words weren’t appropriate. Adding to his apology by one word of defense, or explanation would defeat its purpose, and in this instance Molly knew: ‘I’m sorry’ was the only thing he had any right to say. So he said it, and no more.

“I’m so sorry, darling.”

“I forgive you.” Caleb murmured in the softest voice Mollymauk had ever heard, and the tiefling crumbled completely. 

He gave the wizard’s hand a bruising wrench, and the wizard gently squeezed back, so undeservedly kind it felt like getting away with murder. The gentleness was crushing, and under its weight Molly bowed his head over Caleb’s shoulder, and finally cried, the tears as much for Caleb’s pain as everything else.

No more was said. Molly because he was too upset, and Caleb because his deepest emotion never came out in words. But after the tears were over, the silence felt cleansed. Less roughly, the tiefling squeezed Caleb’s hand again, and Caleb squeezed back...And that was enough. Just enough.

Just enough for Molly to wipe his eyes, and chuckle wetly. Just enough for Caleb to tug him down into the bed, and pull a blanket up over them both. Just enough for the two men to end up in tangled heap of reconciled affection, both unwilling to part even as they fell asleep.


	4. Fateful Promises

“Oh my gosh, finally!” Jester burst out as the familiar tinkle of the door chime greeted her entrance.

“Home Sweet Home,” Beau agreed, dragging the ribbon out of her undercut, and rumpling up the greasy strands until her head looked like a bird’s nest.

The other members of the Mighty Nein made similar sounds of assent, as they filed into the foyer of the Xhorhaus. Even slightly dusty and uninhabited, the familiar space was a sight for sore eyes. Caduceus at once began to take charge like an oversized mother hen, saying “here let me take your cloak Miss Nott,” and, “Beau don’t you dare track those muddy footprints all over the house.” There was a tangible upbeat mood in the room as everyone began to submit to the firbolg’s fussing and settle in, making themselves comfortable in what passed for Home to most, if not all of them.

“I’ll have dinner ready in twenty, so be ready,” the firbolg announced to the room at large, before vanishing in the direction of the kitchen.

“Who’s down for a hot tub night?” Beau said, tossing her muddy boots in a random direction. “Personally I need a dip before I pass out from my own goddamn armpit stank. I’m fucking filthy.”

“I don’t think you smell that bad...” Yasha mumbled, then both women blushed as their eyes met.

“Uh—Yeah. Thanks.” Beauregard tried to respond with nonchalance. An effort that was a catastrophic failure.

“We can make Shirley Temples!!!” Jester squealed, obvious to the awkwardness. “And chocolate milk!” 

Excluded from the general hubbub, Caleb’s solitary form was already vanishing in the direction of the study, and Mollymauk quietly followed him. Ducking into the training room, the tiefling found Caleb’s scarf and one boot, lying abandoned on the floor. And moving from that room into the study, he found Caleb’s coat in the same forgotten condition just inside the door, and the wizard pulling books down from the shelves, while haphazardly trying to roll back his sleeves at the same time. The dear bumbling fellow was making a mess of his cuffs...

After properly disposing of Caleb’s coat, scarf, and the one boot, Molly advanced across the room, saying, “Darling, let me do that.”

With a sigh of relief, Caleb surrendered his shirtsleeves, and with a few precise turns, the tiefling rolled them up above Caleb’s bony elbows.

“What exactly is the hurry, dearest?” Molly asked, as the wizard began sorting hastily through books and papers.

“Essik said he would teach me more tonight, and I want to be ready.”

“So much so, that you can’t even pause to take your other shoe off?”

Caleb jumped, and looked down at his mismatched feet, going slightly pink as he realized the mistake.

“Ah—well—“ And he bent to shed his boot.

“You can give that to me, instead of throwing it somewhere,” Mollymauk said, when the wizard looked around blankly for where he’d laid the other boot.

Coming back to Caleb’s side after the other boot was put away, he wrapped his arms around the wizard’s waist, and propped his chin on Caleb’s shoulder. For the first time since arriving home, Caleb relaxed, back straightening in Molly’s grip, and laying his own arms on top of the tiefling’s. “Mr. Caleb doesn’t know this,” Molly said with a flirty grin, “but I’m _terribly_ proud of him...my clever boy, and his clever books...”

“ _Ja_ , well. I think Mr. Caleb still has much to learn...”

“And I wouldn’t dream of disturbing him.” Molly said, kissing Caleb’s cheek as he began to disengage his arms. “So I’ll be in the hot tub with the girls for the evening, and let you study.”

But instead of letting Molly’s arms slide free, the wizard gripped his wrist with sudden urgency. “Mollymauk—“

The tiefling relented with a hum, returning to the embrace Caleb seemed reluctant to part with.

“That—um...that, reminds me.” The human faltered, drawing invisible doodles on Molly’s arm around his waist. “I would like to see you again later...after Essik is gone.” He turned around in the tiefling’s grip, blue eyes coming up to search Molly’s face. “Maybe you could come back later?”

“Of course, darling. Anything you want. But,” Molly’s knitted his brow in a light frown, “what for?”

The wizard opened his mouth, when a warning tinkle from the door-chime made them both pause and listen. “I will tell you later.” Caleb said hurriedly, as voices murmured in the front hall.

“Alright,” Mollymauk agreed with an uneasy smile, beginning to loosen his embrace again.

“At least, I promise it is nothing bad.” Caleb amended, catching the doubtful look. “Please don’t worry? I didn’t mean to make you troubled.”

“I trust you, dearest.” Was all that Molly had time to earnestly promise, before there was a light knock, and Essik peeked in.

“Caduceus said I would find you in here,” he said politely.

“Please come in.” And Caleb turned to his papers.

As Essik stepped in, Molly leaned forward, taking Caleb under the chin to get his attention. “Don’t forget the world too long, dear,” the tiefling murmured, the tip of his tail tapping a reminder against Caleb’s cheek. “Message me when you’re finished.”

“ _Ja_.”

Pausing in the doorway, Molly had a brief glimpse of the two wizards beginning to settle over their papers. Then both faltered to look at him questioningly, and the momentary honesty of the view was gone.

“Have fun, and enjoy yourselves, my darlings,” he purred, with a toothy grin.

Essik frowned, nonplussed at the endearment, while Caleb flushed, looking equally embarrassed and gratified.

“Unusual expression...” Molly heard Essik comment as he closed the door.

“That. Is...just a thing he does...” Caleb awkwardly explained.

Mollymauk snickered, pleased with the impression he’d made, and departed to join the hot tub party.

<><><>

“ _Bullshit_!” Beauregard said explosively. “I’m sorry, but there is no fucking way you will ever make me believe that you made some woman squirt just from tickling her with a feather duster.”

“Beauregard! You wound me!” Mollymauk replied with a melodramatic pout, before tilting his head back to address the ceiling: “why have the sainted powers dealt me such a blow?”

“Oh, fuck off.” Beau rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, a woman’s body is beautiful, and orgasms are fucking great. But they’re also fucking complicated, and it takes some fucking leg-work.”

“Literally, or figuratively?” Molly asked sweetly.

Beau gave him the finger.

“People can be into some really crayzee shit!” Jester put in with an enthusiastic bounce in the water, as if to prove her point. “Like, one time, this guy hired my mom for a whole week, just so she could spank the back of his legs with rope taffy. It was like...super weird..”

“Is taffy supposed to have good flexibility or something?” Molly asked, with a frown of skepticism.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “But he was really, really, super specific that it had to be taffy.”

“Did anyone eat it afterwards?”

“I mean...I kinda wanted to. But Momma threw it away.”

The entrance of Clay with a large tray in his hands ended the discussion, and he knelt down at the edge of the hot tub saying, “hope I’m not interrupting something.”

“No, just talking about sex stuff,” Jester said brightly.

“It was getting super weird.” Beau added.

“Oh. Well, I brought everyone some iced tea, since you’re taking a hot bath,” Caduceus said as he passed out mugs. “I thought you might like some refreshments. There’s also shortbread cookies, but I couldn’t carry everything at once.”

“Yay, for Ducey!” Jester gave a random cheer, joined by no one else, and echoed by no one else, as she accepted her mug. Then she took a noisy slurp, and did a spit-take. “it’s just like ice cream!”

“You said you missed having Nicodrani desserts,” the firbolg shrugged, with a loose dopey smile. “So I tried to make you something that would taste like home.”

Jester disappeared face first into her mug, slurping noisily.

“Hey, actually, this is pretty good.” Beauregard said, after a speculative mouthful that she swished around like mouthwash before swallowing. “Nice one, Duces.”

“What is this mana from heaven called then?” Molly asked, swirling his own mug.

Before Caduceus could answer, Jester tilted her head back with a final appreciative slurp, standing the mug upside down on her nose. Then she reappeared on the surface with a smile and a burp, before going cross eyed, and gripping her head as if it was about to explode. “Ow. Ow. Cold.”

“Maybe it would be wiser to not drink it quite so fast, next time.” Caduceus advised goodnaturedly.

“Can I have some more?” The blue tiefling demanded, without acknowledging his advice.

“Yeah, there’s a whole teapot here...and no, I haven’t decided on a name yet.”

“Well, it absolutely needs a name!” Molly said with mock severity.

“White Tea.” Yasha suggested lamely.

“Darling.”

“Well, it is white.”

“Darling!”

“Bone Juice.” Beau snapped out.

“Little morbid, don’t you think?”

“What about... _Essence de crème glacée_?” Jester suggested in a throaty, seductive tone.

“There is literally no way I’ll ever be able to remember that,” Beau said in disgust.

“Personally I suggest ‘Yummy Caduceus Cream.’” Mollymauk said, smiling with expectant wickedness.

His submission inspired immediate groans of vocal disapproval, and Beau tried to duck him. Evading her attacks, he slipped out of reach, and with an innocent smile made another suggestion. “Tasty White Stuff?”

“Literally, stop.” Beauregard groaned, and Yasha splashed him with a generous wave.

Spluttering after the baptism, Molly was readying another double entendre, when an unexpected voice in his ear made him jump and cut himself off.

“ _Mollymauk, I would appreciate your presence, if you could be so kind as to attend upon me_.”

Interest immediately sparked in Molly’s stomach. Caleb’s voice sounded absurdly careful, couched in polite decorum, as if only an enormous effort had made him so emotionless. And even though no one could hear the message but Molly, it was still pleasing to know that the wizard was trying to hide the obvious connotation of his words.

Mollymauk suppressed a grin.

“ _Of course, darling_ ,” he responded without thinking, and then realized that there were other listeners in the room with him.

“Wow.” Beau said with a lift of her eyebrows. “We actually got him to shut up, Yash.”

The assumption was wildly misplaced, in light of what had actually happened, but Molly accepted the aid in a confused way. Far too eager to wait much, even for appearances, the tiefling immediately began to climb out of the bath, shaking water out of his hair. At the sight of his exposed form Beauregard gagged theatrically, and covered her eyes. Molly kicked a splash of water at her.

“Oh no, Mollee, you’re not getting out already!” Jester pouted, as he squeezed himself back into his leggings by hopping on one foot and then the other.

“Unfortunately, I am, dear.” Molly said, cutting himself off as he yanked his shirt back on, and came out rumpled on the other side. “I’ve been persecuted into withdrawal.”

“What a crock of shit.” Beau laughed derisively. “He just wants to dick around with Caleb.”

“I will inform you, Beauregard my _dearest darling_ , that we do not ‘dick around.’” Mollymauk made a show of lifting his nose majestically. The effort was somewhat marred by the indignity of stuffing his shirt back into his leggings at the same time.

“HA!” The monk said, and threw a washrag at the door as he darted through it, thumping behind him on the wood.

“Fucking mind reader...” Molly muttered to himself, as he padded off to find Caleb, bare feet slapping softly against the stone floor.

The study was empty, when Mollymauk slipped in, the table bare and tidied. Crossing the room, he knocked on Caleb’s door, and was surprised to get no answer. Odd.

“Caleb?” He called questioningly.

Silence.

Mystified, the tiefling cast another glance around the empty room, as if asking it for advice. Predictably getting none, he turned back to the door, and gently tried the handle. Here he discovered a solution, for the door was not locked, and he immediately turned the handle completely, and stepped into the room.

There was another door.

It was floating about two inches off the ground, where nothing had been before, facing him without the smallest sign of giving answers. One glance showed that the rest of the room was empty, and Molly frowned, chewing his lip in perplexity. After an inward deliberation, he stepped up to the new door, and knocked again.

A lock clicked inside the phantom door as soon as his knuckles touched it, and the it drifted open a couple inches with an ominous creak. There was nothing but darkness on the other side.

Beginning to grin with delighted intrigue, Mollymauk shoved the door wide open. It looked on...nothing. Not a view of Caleb’s desk against the back wall of the room, but not a revelation of anything else, just darkness so black it was like a pool of ink floating in the air. Molly shivered, half please, and half intimidated. Then muttered, “you perfect madman...” to no one in particular, and nerved himself to step in.


	5. Fulfilling Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let’s be honest people: this is what we were all waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My opinion may be biased, but let me just say: a woman’s vagina is fucking amazing, and this is my excuse to talk about it. Extensively. 
> 
> Ladies and Gentlemen who agree, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Mollymauk’s foot met solid ground, and he opened his eyes to a blaze of lights. After the first blind plunge, tangible shapes had suddenly become visible where nothing had been before, and he found himself standing, off balance and nonplussed, in what almost appeared to be a bedroom.

At least, there was a bed.

But after the first addled impression, the bedroom, or open space, or whatever it was...began to look less and less like an ordinary bedroom. Actually the massive bed, piled with feather pillows, was the only bedroom-like object there. He could see no walls, only stone floor that vanished into thick shadows, and there didn’t appear to be any entrances or exits. Four vague gray masses that might be stone, stood where the corners of the room should be, and were quite literally covered in candles and wax drippings, until the central area around the bed was brilliant with gold light.

Then he looked up, and forgot about everything else.

There was no ceiling, just a black nothingness. And looming impossibly large, blinding and serene in that blackness, was the largest full moon he’d ever seen. It looked ten times too large, without any stars around it; hovering pale, and huge, and ghostly over the otherworldly space he’d found himself in. 

Finally his eyes broke away from the moon, and he looked around for signs of Caleb. But he failed to discover the wizard, and drifted forward aimlessly, with no clue where to go next. He’d just paused at the side of the bed, distracted by feeling the blankets, when the voice he’d been expecting and not hearing this whole time, suddenly interrupted him.

“Mollymauk...” 

The wizard was standing at the edge of the darkness, between two of the candle stones, wiping his damp hands on a towel. Apparently there must be some other rooms in this phantom space, because Caleb hadn’t appeared from the direction Molly entered from, and that towel didn’t belong to the Xhorhaus. Molly perked up at the sight of him, and smiled.

“Hello, darling. I was wondering where you were.”

“ _Hallo_...” Caleb mumbled, casting the towel aside, and taking Molly’s hand. Seeing Molly gazing around, the wizard gestured at the room, and asked hesitantly, “do you like it?”

“Like it?” The tiefling laughed, “it’s incredible, darling. Of course I like it.”

“It is a gift.” Caleb said earnestly. “I made it for you.”

Lifting Molly’s hand, he bowed his head over it, breathing a long slow kiss into the lavender skin.

“And what exactly did I do to deserve it?” Molly whispered.

“I have been thinking about what you asked...the request I can’t fulfill...” Caleb said, and his eyes came up, even while he still sheltered his mouth behind the tiefling’s hand. “I have decided to make amends for it.”

“Caleb, you know there’s absolutely no need to.”

“ _Nein_ , I know. I know. I want to.” Caleb said.

Just as suddenly as his eyes had met Molly’s, they grew skittish again, and he concentrated on the lavender hand in his grip, instead of the face it belonged to. Turning the hand over, he traced lines across the palm. “I have been thinking...” he confessed in a murmur, “that perhaps I was too hard with you.”

“Darling—“

“I know it cannot have been easy: listening to me tell that—story—the way I told it.”

For a moment Molly paused, not exactly sure how to answer. Because, from a certain perspective, Caleb was right. Or at least half right. Finally the tiefling settled for closing that last scanty distance and propping his forehead against Caleb’s as he said, “I would have gladly listened, no matter what story you had to tell.”

“You have to admit, there were gentler ways I could have told it,” Caleb said, breaking away to search Molly’s face again. “I didn’t... _have_ to tell you all the things I did. You would have known enough.”

“But I’m glad to know more.” Mollymauk rebutted firmly. “Darling—“ he said with a half pained, half pleased laugh. “—I would have treasured it, whatever you told me.”

Caleb’s head drooped, and Molly scrambled to maintain the connection. He bent forward to try and catch the wizard’s eye, and when that didn’t work, he forced Caleb to lift his head with a hand under the chin.

“You’re allowed to make mistakes with me,” Molly whispered earnestly, cupping a hand against the wizard’s cheek. “Alright?”

Caleb nodded, short and clumsy, “ _ja_ , ok.” And bent forward to give Molly his lips.

The tiefling sucked in a breath, as soon as they met, instantly receptive. After a momentary hesitation of frozen stillness, crushed together but not moving, the wizard suddenly abandoned his grip on Molly’s hand, and trapped the back of his neck instead. And then—thank the Moonweaver—Caleb finally started moving.

The dance remained chaste only for a few seconds. Then Caleb lightly bit and tugged on Molly’s lower lip, and the tiefling opened his mouth to accept the tongue he knew would come after it. Caleb licked into his mouth, and Molly hissed over something not quite a moan, but definitely too heavy to be breathing. But after only a few disjointed moments of wet and bruising glory, the wizard pulled away, and before Molly had time to complain as he fully intended to, hot greedy lips sealed over his neck.

Mollymauk’s complaint came out as a shaken moan instead, throat vibrating under Caleb’s bruising attentions. A sudden inspiration made Molly throw his head back. And there, full, and fierce, and heaving overhead, was the swollen disk of the moon, like a third lover looking on. Molly moaned thickly, lust singing in his blood for the ghostly orb towering over them, and then the fevered connection broke as Caleb latched onto the tiefling’s pulse with such driven cruelty that Molly couldn’t keep his eyes open. With a sharp rip of departing suction, Caleb abandoned the throbbing bruise he’d left to bloom on Molly’s throat, and the unexpected loss made the tiefling stumble.

“I have an idea.” The wizard panted. “Something I want to do for you instead. Since I can’t pay you, like you want.”

“Well, darling, do tell.” Molly purred.

“You are alright with magic?”

“ _Shit_ ,” the tiefling cursed, stomach clenching pleasantly. “Please tell me this has something to do with your cat paw.”

“Not exactly.” Caleb said. “Was that something you’d be interested in?”

“Mmm, you know me, darling.” Molly growled back, deciding that he literally couldn’t survive one more second without his mouth kissing Caleb’s, and yanking the wizard in accordingly. Panting hot and needy against Caleb’s mouth, with adventurous hands raking through his red hair, Molly said in a rough voice, “you know how I am about getting held down.”

Caleb’s answer was a distracted hum, stumbling slightly against Molly’s greedy crowding. For a moment the wizard fumbled, half like he was going to topple over, and half like he was trying to do something with his coat while the tiefling was unhelpfully clinging to it. Hands tangled and mixed for a confused battle of moments, then Caleb managed to dip a hand in some hidden inner pocket of his coat.

For one more glorious second of domineering control, Molly had his hands anchored around the lapels of Caleb’s coat, and Caleb had found his balance enough to be truly worth kissing. The tiefling devoured everything he could get, hanging on the wizard’s coat, and leaning his full weight against the human now that he was a dependable prop to Molly’s clinging affection. Then Caleb yanked away, blue eyes meeting red with an icy fire behind them, and the wizard chanted something that vibrated through Molly’s bones like the tiefling was a struck bell.

“Fuck—“ Molly choked, legs giving out completely under the shock of magic, as his coordination evaporated.

Caleb caught him, and he could do little more than hang on desperately, still scrambling to catch up with the flood of new sensations. “What—“ the tiefling began, then cut himself short as the full weight of realization slammed over him like a tidal wave. Instead of words, all he got from his vocal cords was a moan, lurching on his feet.

“ _Caleb_ —“ the tiefling sobbed, words failing again at the feeling of his own voice.

“Shhh, I know it feels strange,” Caleb soothed, still completely supporting Molly’s limp weight.

A pathetic whimper bubbled past the tiefling’s lips, still too overwhelmed to stand on his own, and Caleb soothed him with a gentle kiss to the temple. For nearly a minute there was fragile silence, and the wizard let it stretch out, the seconds falling in slow motion. Then finally Molly relaxed his grip, knees still weak but no longer useless, and sighed weakly against the wizard’s neck.

“Can I look at you?” Caleb whispered into Molly’s disheveled curls.

“Yeah.” Molly agreed in a tiny voice, strangely shy, as he’d never been shy of his body before.

Caleb looked down.

The tiefling still wasn’t curvy by any means. Caleb’s spell had preserved Molly’s original slenderness, only adding fat and softness around his hips and shoulders, where before Molly had been decidedly angular. Now the soft plush of his breasts, not at all concealed by the loose draping fabric of his shirt, were curved with flesh instead of tight against Molly’s ribs. The tiefling’s leggings had grown tighter around the new width of Molly’s feminine hips, but looser in other...well...important places. Instead of the familiar pressure and restriction that came with arousal, was an empty heated glow that was almost more tantalizing. Even when an erection was trapped in your pants, you still got some friction.

“Molly...” Caleb breathed.

He said no more, but didn’t need to. His reverent eyes said enough. They were unabashedly worshiping, obsessed with the body he’d created, as if it were real and not an illusion. Without removing a single piece of clothing, Molly felt naked under that look, and his heart ached painfully at the devotion. It was almost too heavy for him to keep his feet under.

“Good?” He rasped.

And Mollymauk shamelessly fished for complements with that same question every day, but now for the first time in his life he was asking for an answer. He’d never felt much interest in how other people felt about his old body, and merely laughed if they didn’t like it. But he itched with a need for this temporary form to be approved in a way the real one had never troubled him.

“Molly!” Caleb said again, this time vaguely disparaging, as he met Molly’s eyes with a reproachful frown. “Better than _gut, liebchen_...Better than perfect...”

The wizard stepped back into Molly’s space. Which made the tiefling realize: Caleb had made him shorter too. Molly’s head only came up to Caleb’s chin now. The human embraced Molly’s new form and he bit his lip, blushing and self conscious for the first time in his life, demeanor folding up small and contrite in the wizard’s arms.

“I want you to like it,” Molly admitted, voicing an insecurity he hadn’t meant to reveal, until he was already speaking it.

“You are always beautiful to me, _schatz_.” Caleb promised with complete sincerity, hands wandering over Molly’s slender waist. “So beautiful...”

Slowly, as if moving through sand, Caleb turned the tiefling’s body, and Molly allowed himself to be moved. Then he felt welcoming blankets at the back of his knees, and with a gentle push Caleb toppled him back into them, where he landed with a trembling gasp. Then Caleb bent to crawl after him, the wizard’s eyes burning with admiration.

Caleb’s body caged Molly’s in like he’d had never seemed big enough to do before, as he crawled up into Molly’s space. The wizard looked black, and looming, and _possessive_ in the semi darkness of candlelight, hovering over this new yielding and tender form. Molly felt every bit of the weight, shuddering underneath it, and feeling as vulnerable as a tightly stretched nerve.

“Can I undress you, Mollymauk Tealeaf?”

It was such a decorous request. Everything, from the careful words of Caleb’s choosing, to the use of Molly’s full name, was so chivalrous and attentive that Molly’s throat closed. Instead he nodded, dumb and tongue tied, too overwhelmed between attacks on multiple points at once, to find his voice.

With unbearable delicacy, Caleb reached up to untuck Molly’s shirt, careful fingers tugging the fabric free. He was so careful, and so silent about it, that Mollymauk felt naked, long before Caleb had even exposed any skin. Then slow hands pushed Molly’s shirt up to reveal inch by careful inch, and the tiefling realized he’d never truly felt exposed before. Until finally Caleb’s hands dragged the bunched fabric up over Molly’s naked breasts, pulled the garment all the way over Molly’s head, and tossed it aside.

Sitting back on his heels, Caleb’s eyes devoured again, glowing with worship in the candlelight. It was a look that Molly hardly knew how to meet. It was so honest and so naked that no one could have mistaken it. The wizard was looking at something he found beautiful and no one, not even Mollymauk, could have refused the fact if they were really looking at Caleb’s face.

“ _Schiesse_...” Caleb said in a voice of undisguised wonder. “You are so pretty, _liebling._ ”

“Well, you would know best,” Molly tried to joke, an insecure corner of him grasping at defensive humor. “You’re the artist after all.”

Caleb only shook his head. He knew the tiefling too well to credit the teasing with an answer, and the disparaging frown came back, as he refused to acknowledge Molly’s flawed attempt at control with anything more than a reproachful look. The tiefling smiled, the expression a little watery at getting called out, but despite that he felt reassured. Getting no response out of Caleb, instead of making Molly less secure, left him feeling safer, a little part of the dark corner beginning to surrender.

“Can I touch you?” The wizard said after another long admiring silence.

Molly smiled, trying to battle down his tongue. It was always too quick to respond, too quick to laugh, and make light of what he cared about. Trusting nothing else, he settled for another dumb nod.

The wizard bent his head, moving with the same pronounced chivalry, and kissed Molly between the collar bones. It was only a chaste brush of lips, accompanied by the rasp of stubble, but in that glancing contact was a puff of warm breath that made Molly shiver with delightful sensitivity. Still hanging tantalizingly out of reach, Caleb traced a wandering trail of fingers up Molly’s sensitive side, and let his hand circle almost aimlessly over one of the tiefling’s breasts. Then the wizard grinned with blades behind his teeth, and allowed his thumb to drag faint and tantalizing across Molly’s nipple.

Somehow anticipation still didn’t make Molly ready for how sharp it felt. The glancing touch, light as it was, made a flood of goosebumps prickle down his arms, and his legs shifted restlessly around the sparkle of needy tension between them. He barely restrained a moan, arousal hissing out sharp through his teeth as a careful gasp.

As if pleased with the shaken reaction, Caleb’s eyes glittered with dangerous ice. Finally gentle fingers cupped the tiefling’s breast, pale freckled skin against lavender, and the wizard doubled over to follow the hand with his mouth. Caleb dragged the bridge of his nose across the sensitive bud, then paused to breathe over it, mouth giving no more than half realized brushes and insubstantial heat. If he’d wanted to torture the tiefling, that would have been the best way, as the tiefling’s breasts immediately flushed and hardened, nipples going stiff while his unacknowledged core positively ached with need.

But Caleb didn’t relent. Sinking to his elbows over Molly’s form in the bed, the wizard dragged his lips faintly across Molly’s sternum, as he switched breasts. Then his lips finally parted. Carefully Caleb opened his mouth to take the hardened bud of Molly’s breast between his teeth, still heartlessly denying his lips, but biting just enough to grip and tug. Then finally, right before the moment when the tiefling’s flesh was about to tug out of his teeth from the pressure, he closed his lips around the bud. The wizard sucked down, and Molly moaned, plaintive and hungry.

“Very nice,” Caleb said, as if commenting on a clever move in chess, and the removal of his mouth made Molly want to spit venom. “What a good little _kätzchen_ you are.”

At a beseeching look from the tiefling, Caleb softened, finally beginning to provide the sensation Molly craved. He licked over the tiefling’s breast with loving attention, a distracted hand fondling the other side, then paused to breathe over his work making the kiss swollen flesh tender with chill. More velvety pleasure sounds dropped from Mollymauk’s lips, cupping the back of Caleb’s head, even though the tiefling was too distracted to guide him anywhere.

Then Caleb’s free hand cupped between Molly’s legs.

At the first unexpected touch, Molly moaned desperately, voice thick with desire. Caleb’s hand settled in and then fondled, the meat of his palm grinding into the tiefling’s pubic mound, and the pressure made Molly’s coordination vanish. Instantly unstrung, his head dropped back to expose his working throat, hips rolling up to magnetically chase the wizard’s hand.

For an agonizing moment the pressure vanished, but only for the rapid amount of time it took Caleb to undo the lacing of Molly’s leggings. A few dexterous tugs from skillful fingers, and then the hand was sliding back where it had been before, this time underneath the fabric that had previously restrained him. Molly mewled with petty need, hips canting up into the invasion, then moaned throatily as hot blunt fingertips glided through his folds, slipping easily into place.

The dance of Caleb’s fingers was deplorably easy through Molly’s slick folds, the tiefling already so wet that his leggings were damp. He should probably be ashamed, or at least amused at himself, but all Molly could feel was the gentle touches, and everything else vanished from his mind. Playful and admiring again, Caleb’s fingers shifted and explored around Molly’s flesh, feeling out folds and crevices as if determined to map out everything about him.

“What a sloppy little cunt,” Caleb growled, speaking with a hand still buried to the wrist in Molly’s garments. But for all his scathing words, the wizard’s hand remained steadfastly where it was, as he rumbled in a darkly admiring voice, “You’re going to make a mess with how wet you are.”

The words and exploratory touches still didn’t prepare Molly, or make him any less vocal, for the first deeper touch of Caleb’s fingers. One careful index slipped down so quickly that Molly almost didn’t notice it, and crooked into his flesh hardly more than one knuckle deep. A moan dipped past the tiefling’s lips anyway, regardless of how shallow the penetration was. It was something, and that something was everything, already making him rock up into the wizard’s hand.

Caleb hardly even moved, just massaged that teasing finger against Molly’s spongy flesh, just within his entrance. To Molly’s inexperience it was enough, and more than enough when Caleb’s attentions to his breasts were added to it. The wizard clumsily bit at the tiefling’s nipple, snagging a place to occupy his mouth with distracted attention, more than half concentrating on the hand gently crooked between Molly’s legs. Molly’s panting turned into moans, and then whimpers, as he rode Caleb’s touch the best he could.

“Do you think you can come like this?” The wizard asked, after sucking a bruise into the fleshy skin of Molly’s breasts.

“Probably.” Molly said in a weak and thready voice.

“Then do it.” Caleb said, voice thick with gravel.

The wizard’s attention was obviously diverted elsewhere now, mouth clumsy and forgetful, as his hand pumped into Molly’s body, lavishing careful attention to his surprisingly tender core. Every few movements some chance position of their bodies would make the meat of Caleb’s palm nudge against Molly’s pubic bone, and the tiefling would shudder with extra sensation.

At the end of a few lingering caresses Molly peaked with a breathy little moan. It was only shallow and gentle, not enough stimulation to draw out anything more. But he toppled into it with a lazy grind, core contracting sluggishly, as if the inflammation of his pulsing flesh almost wasn’t worth the effort. It was soft and tender and _soothing_ , Molly’s cunt pulsing under Caleb’s coaxing strokes. The tiefling lost the rhythm of his breathing for a few seconds, then spooled out into the sheets with a long shuddering exhale, relaxing with bone deep satisfaction.

“Good girl,” Caleb praised in a dark voice that implied just the opposite. “That’s my easy little slut,” with a parting press into Molly’s flesh before he plucked his hand out of Molly’s leggings.

It was damp with Molly’s wetness, and smeared slick over the tiefling’s skin as Caleb’s hand gripped his side. Molly was far from complaining. Caleb’s plucking, suckling kisses against his sternum, and perfectly degrading words, were too distracting to think about anything else. The wizard licked and kissed over sweaty flesh, scattering affectionate little touches as plentifully as the freckles were marked on his own skin.

Distracted as he was, it took Molly a few moments to notice where the general direction of Caleb’s wandering affection was leading. And when he did, a hot hungry pulse rolled through his stomach and groin, gut clenching heavily. Caleb kissed his way over Molly’s stomach, the soft flesh beneath his mouth dipping and expanding sharply, with how deep the tiefling was breathing.

By the time Caleb reached the hem of Molly’s leggings, the tiefling’s cunt was pulsing with desire. Still coming down off one orgasm, the throbbing heat of the aftershocks only combined with the plunge of warm arousal pouring into his stomach, and made him ready for another. Caleb sealed his lips over the soft velvet skin between Molly’s pelvic bones, and sucked a bruise there that made the tiefling moan wantonly, hips bucking up into the wizard’s punishing mouth.

“Gods, you sound so filthy like that, _liebling_.” Caleb chided playfully, as if he wasn’t aroused in the least by Mollymauk’s neediness, only amused by it, and propped the sharp digging point of his chin over the stinging bruise.

“You’re fucking awful,” Molly shot back, trembling and breathing heavy like he’d been running in a race.

“Not as awful as you,” and the wizard ducked his head to plant another kiss where he’d already left the bruise, “pretty bitch...”

Molly bit his lip, and his stomach fluttered pleasantly at the insult, by now so familiar that it was almost more an affectionate nickname than a degrading title. Caleb kept lingering for one more kiss, and then another after that, and Molly’s cunt throbbed with it. Still hovering over the tiefling’s skin, Caleb’s fingers curled under the edge of Molly’s leggings, careful and exploratory. As soon as he felt it, the tiefling canted his hips up, trying to show that he was more than ready to be stripped, and the wizard’s fingers grew firm in their grasp.

Sitting up, Caleb tugged down the tiefling’s leggings, and tossed them off the bed after the previously discarded shirt. Molly was still wet with arousal, and the cold air against his slick flesh made him hiss and shudder, enjoying the exposure. The wizard’s burning hands settled over Molly’s knees, then slid inward to coax his legs apart, and Molly obligingly spread out to display himself.

The wizard faltered over Molly’s glistening cunt, as if he hadn’t quite expected the actual sight of it to affect him as strongly as it did. He looked nearly speechless, eyes round and hungry, looking at Molly’s temporary body as if he’d never seen a woman’s cunt before. Molly itched under that look, whining softly, as Caleb’s form of worship only got him wetter.

Eyes practically glowing, Caleb finally bent forward. For a moment his mouth hovered over the waiting flesh without touching,  
and Molly’s head dropped back, too tempted to look. He couldn’t fucking watch this. But that only confronted the tiefling with the moon again, still swollen in the blackness, still watching them both. Molly keened, sharp and almost pained, aching with how _difficult_ it was to keep still when trapped between both of them. But somehow he did manage to lock himself in place, rigid and dripping beneath Caleb’s denying mouth, and the discipline was well rewarded.

“Good...” the wizard purred, low and dangerous. “Very good, _liebchen_. So polite...You’re behaving properly for once...”

Caleb only kissed him first, still restrained, still denying. A small chaste brush of lips, dropped into the nest of tight curls, and Mollymauk trembled with the effort to keep himself still, needy cries bottling up in his throat. Moonweaver fucking save him, but this was torture. The wizard licked a hot line up the seam of his cunt, not yet pushing past the folds, and Molly couldn’t even face the moon anymore. His eyes screwed shut, and he gripped his hands into the blankets until his knuckles turned pale, biting his lips with a desperate effort to keep quiet.

“Such a good, patient girl...”

At that moment Caleb suddenly plunged in, licking up into Molly’s dripping core in one penetrating mouthful. The first hungry thrust drew out a startled out a gasp, the next made him unsuccessfully smother a whine. Then Caleb grasped him under the hips to tilt him up at a better angle, and licked in, broad and lingering, drawing out a shaken moan and a clutch of Molly’s hand, before the tiefling knew where he was.

“What a needy little _kätzchen_...” Caleb said, cruelly denying his mouth again at the weakness, and he pillowed one cheek on Molly’s thigh.

“Caleb—“

“Shush _liebling_. I know what my favorite whore wants right now.”

After several coaxing thrusts of his tongue, the wizard’s mouth withdrew, and he dragged the broad of his tongue up the length of Molly’s cunt, from his slick and pulsing entrance to the swollen bud of his sensitive and long over-patient clit. The first stroke of Caleb’s tongue at that sensitive bundle made Molly groan and flinch hard, almost choking on the sensation he’d been denied until now. His cunt throbbed deep and hard, slick with pleasure, and as soon as he had the one, his hips canted up for another.

Thankfully, _mercifully_ almost, Caleb was obliging. As soon as Molly’s overwhelmed cry met the air, the wizard’s mouth helpfully embraced his aching clit, and the wizard’s fingers strayed back to his empty cunt. The welcome heat of one finger slid home, graciously accepted all the way to the knuckle, and it accompanied Caleb’s attentive tongue in a long slow stroke. Flicking over Molly’s swollen clit with his tongue, the wizard kneaded into Molly’s flesh, hardly content with one moan before he was coaxing out another.

Gasping and overwhelmed, Molly rode the thrust of Caleb’s finger, hips rolling into the rhythm the wizard was setting. Everything was new and overwhelming and intoxicating, sweeping him off his balance in the rush. He unabashedly enjoyed it all, letting his cries of pleasure tumble free from his mouth as they pleased, and sharing equal worship between the sight of Caleb’s head between his legs, and Caleb’s moon watching over them. At the addition of a second finger he sobbed, and at the driving pressure of Caleb’s mouth sealing around his clit to suck hard, he keened again, this time breathless and thready.

Quite correctly, the wizard interpreted Molly’s thinning voice, as his throaty moans devolved into ragged gasps and hitching whimpers. Caleb scrambled up closer to the tiefling, crouching over him still more eagerly, and redoubled his efforts. A piercing thrust from Caleb’s fingers, pushing hard and then scissoring apart to stretch him until the penetration burned deep and punishing, brought a sob to Molly’s lips, and the tiefling heaved for breath on the very edge.

Then Caleb’s tongue rolled his clit in a slow bruising circle, and he shattered in feeble pleasure. Molly choked on nothing, strangled by sensation, and bucked so hard that Caleb couldn’t hold him down. Everything contracted as his gut clenched in pleasure, and his sight vanished into static. Cunt aching, heat tearing down his legs and ribboning through his stomach, as he trembled apart, and dribbled slick through Caleb’s fingers.

The orgasm left him gasping for air when it was over, still flinching and throbbing hard. Caleb hovered as close as ever, pleasuring Molly with little kitten licks and kisses to his scorchingly oversensitive clit, that made the tiefling shy away and whimper at every touch. The wizard’s fingers had slid out after the first surge of climax, and Molly spasmed around nothing through the aftershocks. Finally Caleb lifted his head, abandoning Molly’s tender clit, and absently wiped his mouth on his shirt, before he shuffled up to lie down between Molly’s legs, chin propped against the tiefling’s sternum.

“Score one for Beauregard...” Molly chuckled at the end of a recovering silence.

“What?” Caleb said with a deeply bemused frown, all the fine lines and wrinkles bunching up around his perpetually tired eyes.

“She was right.”

“Oh...” His eyebrows went up as he replied, obviously with mild surprise to hear Molly of all people say so.

Usually the tiefling and monk woman behaved like a cat and dog forced to live together, pretending to turn their nose up at everything the other did, and in general behaving like children. It was equally understood by both tiefling and monk that they loved the other dearly. But they rarely said so, or stopped bickering like bratty siblings long enough to show their appreciation in some less combative fashion.

“What was she right about, exactly?” Caleb asked, after a puzzled silence in which he shifted restlessly, and knit his brows in the usual way when trying to work out a problem in his head.

“The female orgasm is fucking great.”

First Caleb blushed a bright peony color at the declaration, then burst into a stream of incredulous laughter, the chuckles characteristically stiff and halting. Molly smiled to hear Caleb laugh, and preened under the accomplishment of making the wizard do it, grinning at his own absurdity along with Caleb.

“Maybe so,” Caleb consented, when the laughter was over except for a little quirk at the corner of his mouth that lingered behind. “But I still admire you most, _schatz_.”

“Indeed?” Molly said, with a show of smug satisfaction.

“Yes.” Caleb said without hesitation, and a single tight nod. “Absolutely.”

“I’m quite flattered, darling.”

“You deserve to be.” The wizard met Molly’s arch smirk with a gentle smile of his own, bending his head to kiss Molly’s sternum, before speaking again. “Mollymauk Tealeaf, you are the most beautiful of all beautiful women...Jester’s mother included...”

“Is that so...” Molly purred in a sultry voice, his smile turning sharp around the edges.

“I am positive.” Caleb growled back, meeting the tiefling’s toothy smile, and exchanging an icy one in return.

Shuffling on his elbows, the wizard crawled up until their faces were level, and his hips settled between Molly’s open thighs. The bony angles of his pelvis slotted against Molly’s like a well fitted puzzle piece, and the clothed tent of his erection pressed against Molly’s cunt, as the wizard rolled his hips to grind there. Of course it was only some muffled heat and pressure, but Mollymauk’s active imagination could supply much, much more.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caleb began in a dangerous rumble, rutting down with painful slowness. “You are a perfect picture of seduction.”

He paused to wind Molly up with a host of inciting little touches, which the wizard was well aware Molly found erotic, but not satisfying. The continued slow grind of his hips, touches along Molly’s sides and breasts that raised goosebumps again, and countless little bites and kisses along Molly’s neck and shoulders, all ruthlessly exploiting Molly’s sensitivity. Until the tiefling was hot and irritated, desire burning incandescent in his abdomen, without Caleb moving to do a damn thing about it, but make it worse.

“You are _far_ too tempting for a hungry man to resist, _liebling_ ,” he breathed in Molly’s ear, nipping at the tiefling’s earlobe. “I might get greedy and make a meal of you, all in one sitting, just because I can’t contain myself. How would that sound?”

“I certainly wouldn’t complain.”

The wizard just chuckled, and toyed with Molly’s ear again. One of his thumbs ghosted along the outer shell, tracing out the soft triangle shape. It was a light feathery touch, that shouldn’t have been as arousing as Molly found it, but it still felt absurdly erotic.

“You are far too pretty for your own good.” Caleb murmured again, slow and husky, and he sat up on his elbows too meet the tiefling’s eyes with a hotblooded look. “I could admire this sinful body of yours all night long...but how to do it? How to do it, that is the question. Do I want to hurt you, like you deserve? Or just give you what you want and make you feel good.”

He made a show of tutting, and shaking his head as if considering it, and the tiefling bit his lip with a shiver. The wizard saw him do it, and a predatory _something_ coiled behind his eyes, making them dark and hooded, light blue as they were. It was the sort of look that was more irresistible than the rest, and Molly swallowed heavily with anticipation.

“Are you asking for my vote?” Molly asked, and rocked his hips up against Caleb’s tented groin in a very meaningful way.

“My problem is, _schatzi_ , that I am very tempted to do just that.” The wizard confided as if Molly had spoken his vote aloud, as well as suggestively. “You are so sweet, and I know how well you would sing for me. You sound so pretty when I touch you like you want, and it makes you cry...You sound like a perfect slut...But a very, very pretty slut all the same...” He ducked down to kiss Molly’s sternum again, planted right between the tiefling’s breasts.

It was positively awful, stretching Molly out like a frayed string, vibrating with how tightly it was pulled. Then the tension snapped, and something irreverent and demanding in him rebelled. Writhing underneath Caleb’s body, the tiefling surged up to get a snatched kiss out of Caleb’s mouth, at least before it could be denied him.

There were days when it very much could have been, when after the first surprise of getting caught off guard, the wizard would yank away and chide him for being a greedy whore that couldn’t wait for what they wanted. And after that Caleb would show him just how impetuous the rebellion had been, and make Mollymauk’s patience far outlast anything that had challenged him before, until Molly was forced to acknowledge that the acting out had gotten him nothing but a temporary fix that made everything else worse.

But apparently, that wasn’t how this night was going to go. After the first surprised flinch, Caleb let Molly get more than a fleeting mouthful. The kiss deepened and melted, loosing all pretense of decorum at once, and instead of being denied (as Molly had fully expected to end up) the wizard was surprisingly affectionate and loving.

“How the hell aren’t you naked and fucking me yet?” Molly demanded, after ripping away from Caleb’s mouth to talk.

“It’s only natural, if I haven’t had time to think about it,” the wizard said tartly. “You’ve been keeping me rather busy.”

“It’s a goddamn _crime_ , is what it is.” Molly asserted. “Get the fuck out of that shirt.”

Caleb’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and Mollymauk grinned with feral anticipation, as the wizard sat up. When he sat back on his knees, Molly followed him up from the bed. Hands tangled and clashed over Caleb’s shirt, as the wizard began to neatly unbutton his collar, and Molly grabbed the shirt hem to yank it up over Caleb’s head before more than half of the buttons were undone. The wizard choked on a laugh, as his head became muffled in fabric, then Molly ripped it all the way off, and tossed it in a random direction after the other forgotten garments on the floor.

The wizard emerged from his brief disappearance smiling, and instantly scrambled back off the bed, before Molly could get his hands on anything else.

“No more.” Caleb chided playfully, shaking his head. “You know that’s not where your hands are allowed.”

Molly made a show of grumbling, but it was only half hearted, and he had to suppress a gleeful smirk that flatly contradicted the pretense.

Fumbling with the buttons on his trousers, Caleb nodded in the direction of the headboard. “Go lie down on the pillows, _kätzchen_. And stop being greedy.”

The tiefling was more than happy to obey, and flopped himself back into the piled up pillows at the head of the bed. He turned to lie back just as Caleb jerked his trousers down, and the wizard straightened to find Molly looking at him fixedly, ruby eyes glowing in the candle light. As their eyes met, Molly smirked, nibbling at the edge of his lower lip with toothy anticipation, and he spread his legs apart.

It was like that first unfortunate scene on Caleb’s desk, the tiefling just as shameless, graceful, and alluring as he’d been before. But this time there was no corset, and no chemise, and more important than anything else no cotton drawers. Molly’s entire lavender body was completely exposed to the air, breasts perky with the slight chill, legs sleek and open, cunt a dark needy purple and glistening with slick.

Molly’s grin widened, growing more toothy and feral, as he watched Caleb react. The wizard shuddered, almost imperceptibly. If the tiefling somehow could have harbored the smallest doubt of how desirable the wizard found him, one look at that fully hardened cock would have laid it to rest.

Caleb looked _hungry._

The sharp, predatory glitter, briefly banished by Mollymauk’s playful antics, reappeared in full force. His expression was dark, and shadowy, and possessive. And Molly was the object of it. Pinned under that unwavering focus, the tiefling couldn’t help but shiver, just a little unnerved. It was hard to be anything else, when Caleb looked like he was considering whether or not to give cannibalism a try.

“Now that was very naughty, _schatz_.” The wizard murmured softly.

Not a tender, or gentle kind of soft. It was a dangerous kind of soft; a predatory kind of soft. A big hunting cat, stalking unwary deer on padded feet, would have addressed its pray in such a voice. A hungry panther’s kind of soft.

“Yeah?” Molly said, trying for coy and getting breathless from his vocal cords instead.

Something of the same coiled danger got into the roll of muscles as Caleb moved. He crawled onto the bed, stalking up to where Molly was lying exposed, and the wizard’s shoulders were loaded with heavy grace. When he reached Mollymauk’s form and crouched over him once again, the tiefling found that his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he mutely wilted under Caleb’s forceful presence.

“Oh yes...” still in that same, soft warning tone, “very naughty.”

Gods, how the fuck could anyone have been born this hot?

“I know you understand how to be good for me _liebling_. You can be as nice as a lamb, if you try.” The wizard dragged his eyes over every inch of Molly’s form, and every inch of that examination was languid and judgmental. When he brought his eyes back to the tiefling’s face, they were black with ice. “But that was very bad: opening your legs, and exposing your slutty cunt to me like that. As if your pussy is a piece of meat in a market for sale.”

Molly bit back a moan, deeply eroticized by the words. That frigid domination ate into his vitals within seconds, scooping out his insides and coiling up there like a heavy chunk of ice, with a hot sticky mess at the center of it all.

“I’ve tried so hard to make you behave properly, but you never listen to me...” The wizard chided, in a tone of such gentle reproach that Molly wilted under it, close to actually feeling guilty. “Again, and again, I resolve to teach you better...to make you be good, and obedient, and nice for me...And again, and _again_ you willfully disobey me!”

The wizard’s voice sharpened, growing darker and more disdainful the longer he talked. On that last savage ‘again’ he grappled Molly’s hips, and jerked his body down until the tiefling was sprawled right beneath Caleb’s crouched form. Being handled so roughly made Molly’s stomach lurch, and the air vanished from his lungs as effectively as if Caleb had laid a hand over his throat, though the wizard’s control was too elegant for such straightforward measures.

 _Shit_ , Caleb was fucking crazy.

“You are so disobedient,” Caleb said with a desperate chuckle, almost as if he was laughing humorlessly at the whole situation. “So stubborn, and willful, and spoiled my _liebling_. So bad for me.”

“Was it really that naughty?” Mollymauk tried to reason brashly, even though his voice was shaking, and he couldn’t breathe under Caleb’s domineering weight. “You’re the one that made—“

Caleb muzzled the tiefling’s mouth with a hand so hard that his fingers dug sharp and bruising into Molly’s cheek. The force was enough to instantly bow the tiefling, yielding before the pressure with hardly an attempt at dignity. With the way his cunt was throbbing, Molly couldn’t keep his eyes off the wizard’s face, nakedly obsessed and controlled by the man before him.

“You are so pretty, _kätzchen_...” the wizard chided, hovering over Mollymauk’s restrained form to look at him, blue eyes sweeping over lavender skin with distain. “So pretty. But you won’t be brought to heel. No. No matter what I do to make you better, I see that no amount of teaching can change the original materials.”

A shudder rippled over the tiefling’s form, completely muzzled under Caleb’s hand, and doing absolutely nothing to free himself.

“You are still just a whore, Mollymauk.”

Molly half groaned, half whimpered through the hand on his mouth, stomach giddy with arousal, cunt silently begging for relief. This dizzy sensation never got old. This tossing euphoria, twitched unpredictably back and forth on Caleb’s strings, as if the wizard were a cat toying with Molly’s desires. It was fucking _exhilarating_ every time.

“You’re still just a slut.” Caleb growled, black and threatening. “Obsessed with getting fucked. Begging for my cock...And I can’t train you out of it.”

All the words were gone.

Even if Caleb had freed his mouth, Molly couldn’t have found a single word to make himself intelligible. He was speechless, and delightfully so. Wit stolen, pride crushed, tongue completely numb and throat aching, all at Caleb’s mercy. It was agony.

Perfect.

“But still,” Caleb said, as if it were an afterthought. “If you are a whore Mollymauk, you are _my_ slutty whore, so I’d better make the best of you...and after all,” lining his hips up with Molly’s on the jagged edge of pressing in, “it would be a shame to let such a fetching cunt go to waste...now wouldn’t it?”

He smiled at Molly’s wide pleading eyes, and let his body sink down into the tiefling’s. A shaken sound ripped trough Molly’s throat at the first careful breech, not quite a moan, but not quite anything else: something between a groan and a sigh. The rational part of him knew that Caleb wasn’t an impressive size as far as humans went, but it never felt like that.

Truthfully Molly’s cunt felt too tiny to accommodate him, and it was the worst kind of incredible, to have Caleb make him do it anyway. At the stretch Molly’s little gasp rose into a keen, voice breaking right as the wizard settled. Then it was complete, and Caleb’s body was hot, and filling, and left the tiefling panting with pleasure at being stretched.

Fuck, Molly already wanted to do that part over again.

Caleb himself seemed a little overwhelmed by the sensations Molly’s body was yielding him. The wizard’s head sagged over Mollymauk’s shoulder, and his breath was gravelly, brushing molten air on the tiefling’s skin. Both of them were trembling, and for that one frozen moment neither could find enough strength to move.

Then Caleb dragged his hips up, and dipped back down into Molly’s cunt with almost painful deliberation. Every inch of the slow glide clawed under the tiefling’s skin, and his throat tangled on moans that he couldn’t force out. The stretch repeated all over again, as Caleb slid in, grinding overstuffed heat up into Molly’s cunt behind his pubic bone. Molten warmth and burning stretch filled his core, arousal touching everywhere that Caleb’s body didn’t, throbbing in his stomach and prickling through his fingers.

The only sound Mollymauk could manage was a heartbroken whimper, rocking up as Caleb rocked down, and the wizard immediately answered it. When the tiefling’s overwhelmed plea met the air, Caleb dragged himself up to hover over Molly’s face on one elbow, and silenced the tiefling in a slow and completely filthy kiss. For all that it was slow, it went on forever, almost enough for Molly to drown himself in, and his lungs were burning before Caleb pulled away.

In that time the wizard had set up a rhythm of deliberate and cautious rocking, pumping almost politely into Molly’s body. When Molly’s numbed mouth fell away, gasping for breath and nearly giddy from forgetting to breathe, Caleb sat up a little, attentive and unbending in his tempo. Still choking on moans, the tiefling went with his lead, twitching feebly into the methodical pace in an attempt to match it.

Once his breath came back, Molly regained a measure of cheek. The tiefling managed a grin, if only small and watery around the edges, and reached down for his clit. A whimper sobbed past his lips when he found it, and he caressed the sensitive bud, flesh spasming with pleasure around the wizard’s cock. Caleb answered the whimper with a growled that rumbled in the bottom of his chest, and Molly moaned again.

“Such a spoiled slut,” Caleb hissed, eyes frigid with lust, watching Molly’s finger run in circles over his clit. “So impatient. Naughty bitch.”

The shameless carny at the center of Molly’s soul couldn’t resist showing off. As the wizard watched him, he arched his back to grind against Caleb’s thrusts, eyes sliding closed as he fingered himself, moaning throatily. Under his fondling touch his clit throbbed hotly, flushed a slightly darker purple and swollen. And though Mollymauk was more than enough of a showman and a brat to oversell his pleasure, there was very little need. He was already so achingly ready that appropriately filthy moans tumbled past his lips with very little need to fake them.

It was wonton, and satisfying, and bearable, which meant it didn’t last long.

“Very nice. You hardly seem to need me.” Caleb commented, somehow still coherent despite their situation, and for a moment Molly’s stomach lurched with misgiving that the wizard was about to abandon him. “But...I know you do, really.”

Caleb’s hand brushed his aside, and then even if there had been the slightest temptation to fake what he didn’t feel, it was completely gone. The wizard’s pace was more blunt and punishing than Molly’s almost delicate fingers, and it wasn’t controlled by the tiefling either. Getting touched by hands he wasn’t moving, and couldn’t feel or predict, twisted Mollymauk’s gut in a way his own touch couldn’t move him. Caleb’s thumb settled hot and possessive against the tiefling’s clit, and he rolled it in a bruising circle, startling a completely genuine moan past Molly’s lips.

“There we go,” he said, answering the moan with a sadistically sweet smile. “Isn’t that much better?”

The tiefling’s moan was little more than a whine, scrabbling uselessly for purchase he couldn’t find, as Caleb’s thumb circled his clit again. It was a simple touch, but Molly’s bundle of nerves responded anyway. With a body that was completely new, and a mind that was completely inexperienced, getting off from the change was far too fucking easy

And Caleb was anything but decorous. Somehow he was nothing less than perfect, taking advantage of Molly’s weaknesses on every side...and fuck there were so many weaknesses. The wizard’s relentless pressure was almost too much, riding a sweet edge that sang behind Molly’s teeth, driving Molly toward the climax quick and hard.

“If you really wanted to get off this badly, you should have just asked me.” The wizard said with lazy boredom, flicking his thumb across Molly’s clit in a way that made the tiefling choke on air and shudder hard. “After all...” he smiled in Molly’s face and did it again. “I’m so much better at this than you are.”

It was true. Mollymauk himself was the proof. The tiefling was damningly wet, cunt an eager mess for Caleb’s cock, and every shift of Caleb’s thumb made the tiefling choke on whimpers. He was riding on a high, everything quickly drawing to the point. As if Caleb had pulled out one too many bricks in a precarious tower, the rest of the pieces were tumbling apart, and Molly couldn’t put things back together even though he scrambled to.

Everything was happening so quickly, the tiefling struggled for breath, almost trying to maintain the equilibrium for a moment longer, not yet prepared to tip over the edge. But Caleb was driving and merciless. The grind of his hips an insisting constant, the attentions of his fingers unremitting, so that Molly couldn’t find a break. He shivered and keened, tension wracked to the breaking point...

Then one of the many coaxing sensations the wizard was providing—or maybe all of them at once—firmly shoved Molly over and he climaxed hard. His breath shattered into a little sobbing wail, bucking up into Caleb’s driving hips, and the wizard snarled something in Zemnian. Molly didn’t understand it, and hardly heard it well enough, even if he could.

The molten rush of self-absorption and self-pleasure made it impossible to concentrate on anything outside the almighty force of white-noise. Caleb’s words, even his face were completely lost. All that mattered was the explosive flood of intense sensation through Molly’s abdomen, the white hot cleansing of sexual desire. Just the pure unadulterated euphoria of how fucking _good_ he felt. Every inch of him, and his throbbing cunt most of all, trembling with gratitude and relief.

By the time he came down off the peak, Molly was gasping for air, half strangled by pleasure. The wizard had remained almost overwhelmingly attentive through the whole climax, lavishing affection until the tiefling was half drowned under the flood of sensation. When the tidal waters drained out, Caleb relaxed, rocking vaguely into Molly’s cunt and withdrawing his fingers from the tiefling’s oversensitive clit.

Their eyes met, and Caleb smiled tightly, falling still against Molly’s hips. It was like the wizard was asking for approval, looking for validation without openly requesting it. Part of that was pitiful, and probably Molly would always find it so, but another part of it was endearing, and made Mollymauk very, very tender. In a moment the tiefling had surged up from the nest of pillows, just enough to seal his lips with Caleb’s.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“That was good?”

“That was _very_ good.” He purred

“Ok...”

“Keep going.” the tiefling whispered coaxingly, cupping the wizard’s jaw and rocking around his cock, in an attempt to draw him in. “Fuck me out, love.”

“That’s alright? You’re not too sensitive...”

“No, come inside me. It’s all going to vanish anyway...”

Caleb nodded, but didn’t answer, biting his lip with a last clinging shred of uncertainty. It was only there for a moment, and Molly was even more swift to dispel it, coaxing with every inch of his body. He circled his hips against Caleb’s, dragged down on his shoulders, and nipped playfully at his lips.

The wizard huffed a punched out sigh of releasing tension, the facade of rigid control slipping. He crumpled into Molly’s sway, going loose and shaky like the bout of mastery, brief as it was, had drained him completely. Molly didn’t mind. It was something that occasionally happened, and he quietly took the reigns before Caleb could ask.

“That’s right,” Molly hissed possessively, as the wizard gave a cautious thrust. “That’s right. Come on. Take what you want, darling.”

A shaken moan answered him, small and just a little broken, as Caleb did it again. He fell into the rhythm slowly, but inevitably, as if it was stronger than his resistance. And then it was Molly’s turn to pet and praise, far more tender, and with far less crushing authority than Caleb’s domineering control. Where the wizard was cruel, Molly was coaxing, and where the wizard was aloof, Molly was all crowding affection. Caleb seemed grateful for it, chasing and yielding to every one of the tiefling’s affectionate caresses.

Already satisfied and more than satisfied, the rising heat and absorption of Caleb’s journey toward release held little more than a low pulsing glow of background satisfaction to Mollymauk. Instead he found himself focusing on the wizard’s mannerisms, trying to draw him out, and protect and foster his confidence. He cupped the back of Caleb’s neck, cradled his legs around Caleb’s waist, rocked his hips up into Caleb’s, and did absolutely everything he could think of to build the wizard up.

The white flash of a round circular scar on Caleb’s shoulder caught the tiefling’s attention. It was like a jagged ring, roughly oval shaped, and thicker at its two extremes. If the tiefling had opened his jaw as wide as he could, his gaping teeth would have just fit within its measurements.

His bonding mark.

Something deeper than arousal, and far more satisfying rolled through Molly’s gut at the sight of it. It was the only thing he’d done that had ever drawn blood, the only thing that had left a permanent reminder. A scar with history, with _ownership_. Just like the slashes of Trent’s manipulative claws, this was a claim. A signature. But this one was newer, and stronger.

Instinct made Molly brush his lips over it, barely touching, and his teeth ached at the memory of giving it. Caleb jerked at the touch, light as it was, hips stuttering with a broken moan. So close. Molly did it again, and then again, just to feel the wizard shudder. Every kiss was a reminder, and every reminder meant _mine_ , and every sensitive shudder meant surrender. Then Molly opened his mouth to drag sharp canines over the scar tissue, threatening on the edge of a bite, without actually taking anything. And Caleb’s chest heaved for breath, his moan more like a sob.

“Come on.” Molly purred, tilting his mouth up to Caleb’s ear, and circling the mark with a thumb, and his voice snarled into a growl. “Take what you want...”

Caleb bucked sharply into the tiefling’s cunt with a vulnerable little whimper. He was trembling and clumsy now, scrambling for purchase. Every gasping breath was punched out of him, sharp, and desperate, and pleading. Mollymauk just laughed and hummed, crooning his affection wordlessly, as he kissed over his mark again.

A final gasp, a tiny broken groan, a sharp jostle of Caleb’s hips, and he spilled. Molly squeezed his thighs around the wizard’s hips, gripping him possessively, as the molten release sealed what stray corners of Molly’s core had still been unsatisfied. He stroked Caleb’s hair, and cuddled the wizard protectively closer, tenderly sheltering him through the whole peak and trembling aftershocks.

Then Caleb suddenly went as limp as a wet towel in the tiefling’s arms.

“There we go,” Molly made sure to praise, because after a surrender like that, the wizard was always vulnerable. “That’s good, sweetheart. You’re so good.”

Caleb gave a drawn, supplicating little whine from the depths of Molly’s shoulder, and burrowed deeper into the tiefling’s sheltering arms. For a time Molly let the words go, just stroking the wizard’s hair, while he waited for Caleb to find his feet. Following in company down the stony road Caleb walked on, had taught the tiefling patience. At the end of the vigil, the wizard finally sighed, peaceful and contented, and stirred just enough to draw Molly’s attention.

“Good?” The tiefling asked gently.

“ _Ja_...very.” Was the slow, abstracted answer.

“I love you, darling.”

Caleb squeezed around Molly’s waist.

“I know I said that you didn’t have to prove you were good at anything, or pay me back if you weren’t, but...” Molly chuckled gently, “fuck if you didn’t nearly do it for me anyway.”

“ _Ja_?”

“Very much so, my love.”

“I’m glad you liked it...”

“A bit more than that, darling!” The tiefling laughed, lighthearted and comical as his earnestness became veiled once again. “You’ve probably ruined me for getting fucked as anything else.”

“I will keep a Polymorph around then.” The wizard answered, with a chuckle of his own.

But after the laughter he felt silent for several moments, still hiding in Molly’s shoulder, and the tiefling stilled as he sensed the gap. There was still something wrong...or if not wrong, yet not wholly right. After a long moment, Caleb sat up, shyly seeking Molly’s face, and meeting his eyes.

“I am not...fond of the skills I’ve learned, Mollymauk.” The wizard confessed in a low whisper. “But I am glad to be good at them for your sake, if they make you happy.”

“Darling...” Molly began, and then the words ended there.

Because somehow the sight of Caleb struggling wasn’t as overpowering as watching Caleb _cease_ to struggle. The wizard’s confession wasn’t a giddy or joyful one...probably it never would be, considering the scars: the words and thoughts that went deeper than Molly had first supposed...But it was restful, as Caleb made peace with one corner of his constantly battling thoughts.

Impetuously the tiefling gripped Caleb’s neck, and pulled him down into a long choking hug. The wizard went easily enough, even chuckling at Molly’s antics, but his lingering embrace was very different than the laughter.

It was silent, and honest, and as painful as something so pleasant could be. Which meant that Mollymauk couldn’t let it rest for very long, before belittling his own honesty with laughter. But it was still long enough, and he kept drifting back to the memory of it, many hours after Caleb had fallen asleep.


End file.
